Following: Kingdom of Tootsie (Romanoff Goats)/ Toobie or Not Toobie/ Westside Plumber's Association/ Captain Chris/ Hubert/ Dangerfield's Drum/ Three Travelers/ The Neighborhood/ Poodle's Cardroom/ Port Moresby at Three a.m. / Mondavi's Ride Home/ The Desert/ The Prisoner/ The Bad Guys/ The Alley/ North Butte/ The Old Dog on the Hill/ The Invisible War (a.k.a.The Forgotten War)/ The Lost Man and the Dog/ The Sochi Olympics/ Ms. McTavish/ St. Elvis Day/ I'm Not A Real Mawtch-Ho Man/ Moon Over Reno (Chapter One)/ The Super Secret Brigade in a Tree Fort/ The Playground/ America/ Poverty/ The Carbuncle/ Absolute Chaos: The Pascal Leemur Caper/ Ready or Not Here Comes Eva/ American Hockey Players/ St. Nick/ Wee Men/ Two Strong Men/ Caterina Zutzcu and the Three-Legged Dog/ The Porta-Potty Peeper/ The Only Freakin Normal Guy in Town/ Hoity Toity (Chapter 2, Otis Moon)/ Beirut/ The Birth of Her Caitness/ Jackalopes and Househusbands/ The Three Almost Wise Men/ Charlie Chan Movie Review/ The Garden of the Beasts Book Review/ Travel the World For National Geographic Book Review/ Carl of Hollywood/ Electronic Friggin Banshees/ Lucky Louie.

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​​ The Kingdom of Tootsie orThe Romanoff Goats By Kevin O’Kendley

There’s a small, two-thousand-acre national monument called the Kingdom Of Tootsie on the borders of Nebraska and Wyoming up near South Dakota in the vast American Steppes. In the early years of the Great Depression the Kingdom was stashed away and became a kind of national secret. Can you remember what a secret was? By 1931, as man became more urbane and technology more invasive secrets became more accessible to voyeurs, eavesdroppers, tattletales, etc., so some secrets were hidden within the context of popular songs. For instance: Miles and Miles of Texas by Bob Wills had a secret line in the song that firmly suggested a fundamental truth about Texas that might have caused philosophical issues thereby trade indelicacies during the Depression between Texas and let’s say Rhode Island. It was this part: “Miles and Miles of Texas.” No one could sing a song about miles and miles of Rhode Island without it being a rather short song. In the Great Depression many song writers had to be discreet or face starvation, or at least use a nom de plume. The societal camouflaging of the Kingdom of Tootsie appeared within Al Jolson’s song Toot-Toot Tootsie Goodbye as secret/hieroglyphic-speak: “Toot-Toot Tootsie Goodbye.” Why? One word: goats. Two words: Romanoff Goats. Two more words: Tootsie Rolls. That’s why. There were people that knew Tootsie was there but it was a complex social secret, and of course the goats weren’t quite right. According to Darwin they couldn’t exist -- but they did and that was a problem kind of like Shaquille O’Neal in a Mini-Cooper. Independently of each other the Mini is a grand creation and so is O’Neal but stick the Shaq in the Mini and -- well -- is Shaq too big or is the Mini too small? Whatever your position in this debate you might be willing to concede that something could be askew -- Not unlike the Romanoff Goats:named after the Russian accidental-explorer James Romanoff. Not long after the Civil War, Captain Romanoff hiked inland from the Russian settlement of Fort Ross (California) searching for the Big Valley, or what is known today as the Sacramento Valley. He missed the glacier-scoured bottom-land but ended up in Southeast Oregon. Huh? Romanoff was confused (possibly the vodka), recalculated his position, but in re-configuring or “plotting” his course he forgot in which direction the sun rose and so set. Thinking it set in the east he struck east for the Pacific Ocean, only the Pacific was in the west unless you were in China. In fact, the sun still sets in the west and rises in the east, except during certain political debates where doubt, uncertainty, and a solid lack of information is the primary component of most argument. Anyway: Captain James “The Great Navigator” Romanoff crossed northern Nevada, then Utah, and then Wyoming before he ran into the largest abandoned prairie dog colony in North America. By this time the exhausted Romanoff thought he had circumnavigated the earth or in fact had found the great land passage from America to Asia, which so many covered wagon manufacturers and oxen breeders and boot makers had dreamed of. What he saw astounded him: Hundreds of goats with two short legs and two long legs tumbling, stumbling, falling, and crashing-into-each-other. Or, did the peculiar acrobats have two regular legs that just seemed longer because the other legs were so short? Whatever: the Russian was delighted, it was a little like his native St. Petersburg only without top hats and carriages yet somehow more romantic and “more precise in its natural anarchy.” An elderly Lakota Sioux gentleman in traditional garb and wearing the whole feather headdress thing came over to him and said, “Cuppa tay? Two bob.” “All I got iss rubles.” “Blimey, I was kidding,” the American said, smiling at the Russian. “Incredible creatures, wot?” “Yess -- My name iss James Romanoff,” the Russian said. “My name is Tootsie.” “What are those -- how you say -- uh, mole hills?” The Lakota Sioux wise man smiled. “Prairie dog mounds, old chap. A prairie dog town.” “Yess. Prairie dugs.” “Good show,” Tootsie said. “Almost. It’s prairie dogs, though. D-o-g-s. Can you say dogs? C’mon. You can do it. Good boy.” “Dugs?” “Yes, well, you’re nearly there, sir.” “Vaht iss wrong with goats?” “By gadfrey sir they have two long legs and two short legs. They were bred for going in only one direction on the side of the steep Rocky Mountains.” “Oh.” Originally from the Flatiron section of the Rockies the mountain goats were indeed equipped with two short legs on the port side and two long legs on the starboard side so as to better travel on steep terrain. Of course, as Tootsie said they could only travel comfortably in one direction. So it was bound to happen, sometime between 1640 and 1705 while changing directions in the middle of the night the goats tumbled down a steep ravine at about where Boulder, Colorado, is today (there’s a secret plaque in Toms Tavern commemorating this historical occurrence, ask the bartender and then tip heavily or you’ll never see it). The mountain goats followed their leader Hoses (in Pawnee: He Who Hoses Goats or just Hoses Anything) back up the mountain top. Only being long-legged on the one side and short on the other and of course walking over tumbled granite debris the goats fell down a lot, got confused, and headed off in the wrong direction following their leader (who by this time didn’t know where the hell he was going). As they did so they began to travel in ever larger half-moons, a phenomenon of their cockeyed gait, intersecting, waning and emerging, zig-zagging and whatnot, until they found the abandoned prairie “dug” colony on the border of Wyoming and Nebraska, or about two years (as a one-winged crow flies) after they left the Rockies. Being a pragmatist Hoses told the other goats in braaas, shrugs, looks, stomping the hoof thing, etc.: “These hills are as good as we’re going to do so let’s just accept the situation and make the best of it.” But, even on the side of the steepest prairie dog mound the mountain goats didn’t really have their sea legs. They were cockeyed, lurching, and fell this way and that. Since traveling was now problematic and since the prairie dogs left behind so many spacious and interconnected homes the pragmatic goats moved in. So, the mountain goats became the burrowing goats, thus becoming another group in a long conga line of Americans ready and willing to adapt to the problematic and to situations that just stink. Or, as Andrew Carnegie, the Scots-American steel magnate (not magnet), might have said,“Remove the cap of limitations, expand the definitions, create and survive, and maybe you’ll make a little dough while you’re at it.” Also, he may have said this next thing: “Ye cahn hovrrrrr wives but ye cahnt hovrrrrrr freedom,” which was immortalized in the movies Braveheart and at the end of Stepford Wives. Over time the Lakota people grew to admire the burrowing goats. Yes, the Sioux thought the tumbling, tipping, ungainly goats were living editorial cartoons on the nature of man, a testament to civilization -- no matter whose -- and many Americans came from miles around to watch the goats live their lives in boundless optimism and zestful physical heroics, without actually getting anywhere. Heck, even staggering from one burrow to the next was an accomplishment that the Lakota cheered and believed in. Watching a burrowing goat go in one hole only to pop up from another hole fifty feet away brought even greater cheers from the appreciative spectators. Some of the unpracticed gymnastics was breathtaking and long before the Olympics resumed in 1896. All of it, of course, was a lesson in humility and guts and a no-quit testament to goats. The old Prairie Dog colony evolved in grasslands eons old, a boundless splendor that someone could see, if they looked, for days on end in any direction. What someone couldn’t see was the natural springs, sorghum, Indian wheat, burrowing goat cheese, and other goodies, a mixture of which became a staple that the goats both consumed, plastered tunnel walls with, and used for medicine, which allowed the community to flourish, while giving back and establishing this circle of life in the old prairie dog colony. Chief Tootsie, of the Hammersmith Clan, took Captain Romanoff to a large mound on the edge of the former prairie dog town. They stopped at a wide hole. The elderly American got down on his knees reached into the hole, scooped up a handful of the brown morass, and said, “You should bloody well try this, mate.” At first the Russian was reluctant, given the circumstances, but after just a taste of the mysterious stuff he was hooked. The goo was excellent. What it needed though, was some tweaking and some baking -- some experimenting, you know.Over the next few days the American and the Russian would mosey over to Tootsie’s Hole, grab some goo, and take it back to Romanoff’s fire pit where they experimented in baking the stuff. Eventually they had a very yummy treat. All the Sioux loved the stuff, even the ornery Crazy Bag Lady and her husband One Eyebrow. The fussy Blackfeet “just adored” the stuff, and so did a visiting Methodist couple from Wisconsin who had a background in advertising and communications. The partners began to call the finished delicacy “Tootsie’s Hole,” shortened from the stuff from Tootsie’s Hole. But even to Romanoff (who was learning the King’s English from Tootsie) this didn’t sound right. Besides, the baked goo was brown so “one should be careful in what one called this stuff.” Since they cut it in squares, rolled it up like sod, over time the name finally graduated to Tootsie Rolls. The American staple caught on first out on the frontier but quickly moved Back East. The concoction became a huge success, and virtually “overnight,” too, especially in Wisconsin. It was about this time that the burrowing goats finally began to be called Romanoff Goats (if you were wondering), after Captain Romanoff, the first white man or Russian the goats had ever seen. Since the goats couldn’t travel, and the two partners didn’t want to go anywhere, traders, business people, consumers, had to come to the place of burrowing goats and the two chutzpah bakers. Another story that swept the dire places of the world was that there was now a place in America just for goats, lost goats, scapegoats, or any kind of goat. After the free market forces of supply and demand were underway the Tootsie Roll took off and the semi-predictable occurred, which included but was not limited to the expansion of production facilities, introduction of hotels and restaurants, roads, plumbed bathrooms, churches, an army post, and a house of ill repute, all of which grew up around the old prairie dog colony or what some were even then calling the Kingdom of Tootsie. All manner of goats began to show up, too, especially of the human variety. Not unlike Australia or Boston (former British penal colonies) it wasn’t long before the losers were running things.The symbiotic and natural relationship between the burrowing goats and the human goats grew over time. A culture of cosmic interaction, natural partnership, and the pursuit of the common good evolved but not like a machete and a banana tree, or even a hammer and a nail, but more like sexual intercourse. Just as it was true that many of the losers in the Old World were winners in the New World it was true that many who were losers everywhere else became winners in the Kingdom of Tootsie. Former slaves, dissidents, outcasts, black sheep, retired adventurers, recusants, iconoclasts, science fiction writers, left-handed plumbers, Tourette’s-Syndrome-inspired teachers, the Irish, etc. These and many other folks found a home of forbearance, tolerance, and forgiveness in the Kingdom of Tootsie. At that time most everywhere, even if she were a librarian, a woman couldn’t own land: but she could in the Kingdom of Tootsie. By 1907 the Burrowing Goats gained the right to vote by presidential decree, signed into law by a real goat fan: Teddy Roosevelt. Though it was 1920 before women could vote throughout America, there was never a time that they couldn’t vote in Tootsie. Native Americans didn’t become legal voters until after World War II in the United States but they were voting their conscience in the Kingdom from the very beginning. Heck, the Kingdom of Tootsie became a refuge for all goats no matter the breed, tribe, color, sex, or social status. If you were a goat or a loser (and even if you weren’t) you were welcome. Brraaaaaa. Eventually things got too big, the goat tunnels grew exponentially wider and deeper and more numerous, there were cave-ins, the “molehill” mounds were bigger and growing larger by the day without comprehensive environmental planning, the lay of the land became strangled with a self-devouring physical- and spiritual-sapping sprawl, the hub of the booming candy business grew too large for the tiny Kingdom of Tootsie. So the primary factory packed up and moved to Chicago because nothing is too big for The Windy City, man. It was at about this time, too, that the Russian’s son and daughter, Ira and Mona (yes someone actually married the old goat), started Romanoff’s Restaurant in New York City, originally featuring the excellent candy from The Kingdom of Tootsie and another instant success, Great Plains Buffalo Chips. In the early part of the Twentieth Century Teddy Roosevelt made the Kingdom of Tootsie a national monument by presidential decree. Once again he didn’t need Congress for anything. Man, did that get him in trouble. But, of course the flagrant story of presidential exuberance and many other Teddy tales are better told by David Brinkley in his book, The Wilderness Warrior. After the Crash of Wall Street in 1929 America held on by a thread, gumption, and bold-faced derring-do. But, even then it was touch and go. The Great Depression was a financial catastrophe and a nearly bottomless social upheaval in the American landscape and not just a semi-sinkhole or tourist magnet (not magnate) on Highway 50 in central Nevada. However, in the beginning of the end of the beginning of the end of just a tad of the financial devastation inflicted by unbridled greed and unregulated banking, and a host of irresistible free-market destructive forces building steam for decades, were some goats and losers and a small, little, brown candy -- A candy that sold in Argentina, Finland, Spain, South Africa, China, France, Columbia, Delaware, Turkey, Greece, Kansas, both Lewistons, and Fresno. A commodity that grew in spiraling demand: a tasty treat that sold out the world over. A money-maker that brought cold hard cash to America when she needed it the most. An anchor to stop the nation’s financial slide into the deeper waters of financial mayhem. A warm and fuzzy idea that fostered other inventive ideas, and even more after that: like Tootsie-in-a-blanket, Tootsie Surprise, even a movie in the 1980s (Tootsie) starring Dustin Hoffman. Tootsie Rolls were a food stuff that helped finance the Lend Lease Program sending war materiel to the Soviet Union and Great Britain in order to fight the Third Reich -- An American candy: Dun-da-dunta-da-da-dun! Which is why the Nazis attempted to steal the secret recipe and destroy The Kingdom of Tootsie. This is how it happened: Not having thermal imaging radar or satellite surveillance back then to investigate or peep inside of people’s homes or the hundreds of miles of burrowing goat tunnels, the Nazis, who were disguised as cowboys and their horses, had to stop and ask directions. Just outside the primary goat tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the sinister saboteurs asked a young goat by the name of Adolfo where the secret recipe vault was. The raiding party reportedly said that they worked for the Post Office and had a package for one of the secret recipe guards -- “Joe-uh-Clem-er-Dave-id-ah-Mike.” Now, normally, a very accepting,trusting and kind Romanoff Goat, Adolfo became alarmed by the “cowboys.” Why? Because they had their pants tucked into their boots (and they didn’t do that at the time in Nebraska or Wyoming or The Dakotas except in the movies or in extreme wetland croquet), and “the so-called cowboys” were wearing Bavarian suspenders with little dancing frauleins (single women) on them and most cowboys at that time wore suspenders with somber colors or with little wagons or horseshoes on them. Also, some of the horses were muttering in German. And of course there was this: one horse said to another horse in good Spanish but with a pronounced Alsatian accent, “Tuve strudels demasiados y necesitoir al bano.” Which meant: “I had too many strudels and I have to use the bathroom.” See: what the Nazis didn’t know was that Adolfo had been well educated by the nuns and knew this: Spanish horses don’t eat strudels. The smart little goat gave the raiders the wrong address and written directions that led through a series of winding tunnels (a time consuming trek) which in turn led to an unused loading area. Once they wandered off, he used an emergency phone and called the Holland Tunnel Authority who bushwhacked the saboteurs by quickly painting “Secret Recipe” on the back of a goat cheese delivery truck that was parked at the loading dock, luring the commandos into the Ford and capturing them by slamming the door shut. It was said that the Nazis were armed with safety matches believing Tootsie Rolls in their natural state to be highly inflammable but they were wrong having believed irresponsible slander and not investigative journalism. So, trying to burn down the burrowing goat holes wasn’t likely to succeed anyway without gas and/or a flamethrower. According to later (unsubstantiated) rumors, the Nazis were taken to North Platte, Nebraska, to catch the train, where they were treated well (even though they smelled like goat cheese). Then they were spirited away in broad daylight in boxcars to the Hollywood division of the California Department of Motor Vehicles where they spent two years waiting for a driving license, a ploy to generate time and data. However, back when they were making some well-thought-out decisions, the Supreme Court determined this treatment to be Cruel and Inhuman Punishment and so Heinrich Himmler’s boys were finally sent to a Prisoner of War Camp in Maine. After the war the German prisoners (as have a wide variety of other campers since) pleaded to stay in Maine instead of going home. But, war being what it was the former unsuccessful saboteurs were forced to walk back to the devastated post-war Germany. Just before he died in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to the Kingdom of Tootsie to give Adolfo an award for his part in capturing the Nazi saboteurs before it was made into a Hollywood movie starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Wow, Veronica Lake -- FDR was amazed by the sweeping Great Plains, and the hills atop the Burrowing Goat tunnels. He admired how the goats could run so nimbly and gracefully if only in one direction on the grassy slopes. He marveled at the pine-clad Mt. Noggin in the center of the expanse of the aftermath of centuries of the Burrowing Goat handiwork and the now well-planned landscaping. Looking with obvious fondness out over the crowd, President Roosevelt said: “For centuries winners in the old world and in the new, kings and princes, brown-shirted thugs, bullies and tyrants, the makers of scapegoats, the emasculators of dreams, the cross-burners, the lynchers, the creeps, the mob, have been making mountains out of molehills. But in all their efforts” -- he pounded on the podium here --“they have in the spiritual sense and in the real and in the human sense never triumphed -- their molehills are not mountains, their molehills are only called mountains just as you might call a drop of rainwater a great sea.” He smiled widely here. “But, you -- you -- my dear friends, you goats and losers have finally done the impossible. You have built an edifice to life, an edifice to mankind, an edifice to this nation. You have built the impossible -- you’ve created a majestic mountain out of a burrowing goat hill. Your greatest peak is a work of American art, a Homeric sculpture of engineering, the beauty in the beast, purpose in chaos, a community treasure upon the rolling plains, man’s journey from bottom to top. It is life, friends. Your creation, your mountain, is life. Bravo.” At this the losers and the goats roared, and broke into pounding applause -- “Bravo,” the crippled old man said again, propelled by his noble mind and heart, which was as strong as ever. “Bravo”-- The throngs of decent folks in the Kingdom of Tootsie stood and cheered their president, and then cheered him some more, and not so much because he might have told them what they wanted to hear (they were goats and losers after all and expected very little) but because they truly loved the old guy. They loved their president. And, so they yelled back: “Bravo yourself, Frank. Bravo -- it takes one of us to know us all” -- And the crowd went wild sports fans, freaking wild -- “Bravo,” the Tootsians and the President and his staff screamed together -- “Bravo!”“Bravo” -- Though, this would be an excellent place to end this story this is not the end, no freaking way: In 1976, succeeding where tornadoes, and drought, and hamster infestations, bitter winters, and where even a Nazi raiding party could not, the heart of the Kingdom through a sinister mortgage scam was razed and paved over with glutinous-orange-Brady Bunch-era pavement so as to build the largest used car-lot in North America. But brother was it a lousy place to try and sell a “previously owned high quality vehicle.” Lucky Romanoff’s Used Car Emporium went out of business before you could say Disco Fever, becoming an instant eyesore and bleak orange wasteland that actually could be seen from outer space, though of course everything can be seen from outer space now and I mean everything (so wear a wetsuit in the shower). Finally: in 2003, after years of social and political struggle, dogged maneuvering, and gutsy hustle by a wide variety of Americans, work was begun to restore the national monument to its former glory, to repopulate the denizens of the Kingdom of Tootsie, to rebuild the great goat mountains and tunnels, and to replace the prairie grass and smattering of evergreens across that part of the world: And, like most of us goats and losers the world over the Kingdom of Tootsie is a work in progress, getting better ever so slowly by miniscule heroic increment by miniscule Homeric increment… Bravo. -end-

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or take arms against a sea of troubles… - William Shakespeare (from Hamlet 3/1)

Toobie or not Toobie by Kevin O’Kendley

There are social scientists, especially some odd ducks at Dr. Spock’s Cultural Day School and Cattle Ranch, and even prominent social-order leaders at the nationally renowned Yes You Have No Reservations Think Tank (though they won’t come right out and say so) that claim Toobie (pronounced Too-bee) is essentially a figment of his father’s imagination, even though it has been documented by cartoonists in publications like Mother Jones, Charlie Hebdo, and The National Review that Toobie left footprints in the sand at Pavlov’s Progressive Topless Beach (though women still have to wear tops there) last year. Toobie’s footprints, actually penny-loafer-prints, were confirmed by shoe experts from Tony Lama, and since no one else on the beach that day was wearing penny loafers, this was fairly aggressive forensic evidence that Toobie is real or at least was real, though for some realists -- alas -- it only proves that the loafers were real. Another point in the argument that Toobie is real is that he “suffers” from Sudden Urination Disability Syndrome or SUDS. Can an imaginary figment suffer from a real syndrome? No. However: Yes: This is the “ailment” Toobie’s father -- Dracula Nero -- made infamous and then socially acceptable by immoral yet fervent decree via social-order networking. So, Toobie was brainwashed and marks his territory as did his father before him. Frequently. And, apparently did so at Pavlov’s Beach on July 4, 2013, on coolers, beach towels, a dachshund, a topless guy’s fanny pack, and even -- alas – on a few of the incredibly forgiving patrons of this progressive and thoughtful beach. We all know Nero is the power behind the throne in Hoosegow City, and in front, on top, and on every other side too. In fact, “Emperor” Nero has the mayor and the city council completely surrounded and has for years. Some of the top brass at Nero’s Thought Police are a part of Nero’s personal choir and sing for their supper every day much to the chagrin of honest rank and file officers in the regular police department, and many an innocent bystander with private thoughts, too. So, the inability to control the evacuation of one’s bladder and so succumb to the impulse to pee immediately and on the spot, wherever one might find oneself, has become a social attribute and not an absolute failure of self-control, decency, and a violation of public health codes. It is hard for most folks to imagine that peeing in public or on the public was once a crime: that is before Nero -- alas -- went around urinating on everything and setting and establishing legal precedent in so doing. The tipping point was when Nero was seized by an attack of SUDS and so went poddy just outside of the girls’ locker room at Prussian Helmet High School. A sophomore clarinet player looked out a window and saw Nero or “Drack” as he was called then, with his fly unzipped. She thought Nero was “trying to catch a mouse that was trying to get out of his pants -- it was awful -- he seemed to be strangling the poor creature;” then he urinated. At this juncture through special interests and privilege SUDS was launched and skyrocketed its serpentine way to becoming morally cool, and those that suffer from SUDS now are victims and, pretty much, pee anywhere they want to, even inside the library, especially in the history section. Phys. Ed. Coach Mr. Simba and Mrs. Braveheart, the librarian, said SUDS was “horseshit” and not a real disease at all or even a “legitimate mental fugue.” But, that’s what happens when a select group of people have special privileges… Tuberculosis “Toobie” Nero’s childhood wasn’t a walk in the park. It is a well-known fact “Emperor” Nero was morally against the “horrific blunders of the public education system” and was absolutely outraged that people were peeing in the school library, and so Toobie was educated at home and under Nero’s stern direction. This couldn’t have been easy. As a result Toobie missed most “history” lessons altogether. Some of the un-history that Nero so fervently doesn’t believe (is that a double negative?) and some of the rules and truths that he does are as follows: 1; The 1969 moon landing wasn’t filmed in Burbank, CA, it was actually filmed in North Platte, Nebraska, in a barn at the Union Pacific Railroad Yards: 2; any president born in North Dakota (because it is closer -- ask anyone -- to Canada than any other state) is ineligible for presidential office: 3; all public officeholders should voluntarily prove that they’ve been circumcised and so were born in the U.S. and not Kenya or Hawaii (Nero believes this should apply only to males until further notice) or the suspects should be fired and/or forcibly hospitalized at their own expense: 4; the Swiss should be forced to shut down their cheese mines on the dark side of the moon or share the revenue for the sales of their product -- Vermont Cheddar -- with Nero and his Thought Police (Nero claims the Dutch actually make Swiss cheese). All opponents of Nero’s un-history are called “not-patriots,” or by the more hip vernacular: “un-patriots” (which is going to be a new word in Webster’s Dictionary in 2015). A famous un-patriot now in prison is Mini Disney, a former Nero speech writer, and the great-granddaughter of Walt and daughter of that famous female brain thrust, Fullsize Disney, who invented the Mini-Van. So, there have been some real rocket scientists in Mini’s family. Mini changed some key words and so concepts in an utterly important speech that Nero gave to his primary support group in a closed-casket meeting of the Totalitarian Unified Nation of Aberrationists or T.U.N.A. She changed some very important words among others that she vigorously manipulated within the speech. Hold on to your hat: ready? Okay, here are just a couple of the strategic changes: venerable to venereal, and communicate to communicable. Of course, these booby-word-traps changed the very nature of the speech -- Even though no one in the room caught on, Mini went to prison, anyway. Ironically, something else or the very thing that gave Mini some comfort in this horrible debacle incensed the TUNAs to irascible panic. At the end of the speech in order to celebrate her own sense of diversity, and from her own perspective, she put this in and the unsuspecting Nero said the whole thing right down to the last quotation mark: “If a single drunken and naked white man falls into a snow bank he might not be found until the spring thaw but if he falls into the snow with a naked black woman they could well be rescued before succumbing to exposure or at least spotted from the air before spring.” Of course the TUNAs were outraged that someone, anyone, would suggest that a naked black woman was somehow superior in a snow bank to a drunken, naked white man, which -- alas -- wasn’t what Mini meant: she meant that sometimes it is better to work together, better to merge inherent strengths in individuals so as to survive accidents and foolishness or just to make some things like life and OUR country evolve in the best ways. Aberration means the deviation from the truth or moral rectitude or the act of departing from the normal or usual or sane course, which, of course, is the overriding principle behind TUNA. Mini was never going to land a TUNA anyway, not without getting squashed. Mini’s analogy was scandalous to TUNA and some said it was race baiting or “playing the race card,” which is what the aberrationists seem to do when they have no cards to play at all. Due to a deadly combination of ersatz and real random ingredients, baseball, cooking, a little lunacy, and the lack of any functional knowledge of history, when Toobie was informed by Coach Simba that he could be the next “Ty Cobb, y’know the Georgia Peach” when he grew up -- if he worked hard and dedicated himself -- Toobie thought the coach was referring to cooking not baseball. Toobie thought this because Nero told him that Ty Cobb was a famous cook who invented Peach Cobbler (there’s that history thing again). So -- alas --Toobie vainly attempted to follow in the footsteps of the inventor of Peach Cobbler by inventing a sound yet tasty pastry. Of course Nero added insult to injury and made it worse when he said this: “My favorite cook, Chef Boyardee, invented spaghetti. Just because Ty Cobb invented a famous pastry doesn’t mean that you have to limit your ambition to just desserts. Try a primary dinner staple.” Toobie is an atrocious cook, absolutely miserable, but he stuck with it until he invented a self-cleaning goulash that leaves plates, pots and pans immaculate after any meal thus freeing diners from that age-old drudgery of doing the dishes, which has interfered almost as much as history teachers with a strictly controlled after-dinner conversation. Unfortunately, the fare is completely inedible and worse because of some of its ingredients -- bleach, Dawn dish soap, etc. -- it can produce unpleasant side effects in any or all imbibers including but not limited to “the runs” or “Montezuma’s revenge.” But Nero runs Hoosegow City and so Wunderkind Beef on Toast is stocked to overflowing in all grocery stores and industrial cleaning supply outlets, and is an overwhelming success story. And, no one complains about Toobie’s special invention, or at least not out loud, even if they’re dead -- Because Nero has the whole city bugged. In the late years of President Eisenhower, whom Nero insists was a “Soviet agent,” TEMPEST was a program that was initiated by the U.S. intelligence community to protect valuable American DoD and top secret electromagnetic emanations from those thieving Soviets, visiting Laplanders, and possibly CBS. See: every electronic typewriter, for instance, produces an electromagnetic and unique signature keystroke (by keystroke) which can be retrieved and read through the wall or even from behind the bushes. By the sixties, TEMPEST had come to mean both the defense from such technology and the means to steal said electromagnetic emanations and keystroke by keystroke information from the Russkies and CBS, and various visiting Laplanders in specific campgrounds that accept both reindeer and hooded vacationers from Finland (though many don’t but that’s another story). While unwitting citizens of Hoosegow City continue to spend millions on computer firewalls and the technology to protect their private information, passwords, social security and credit card numbers, TEMPEST technology permits Nero and his minions to steal all of the aforementioned information keystroke by keystroke even as users input this information into secure computers. Keyboards and monitors are designed for the retail market without TEMPEST protection by legal design. Cell phones, computers, landlines, interactive TV sets, are specifically built to be ready and able to spy on any U.S. citizen at any time and BY LAW. In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law the CALEA Act which made all telecommunications devices in America -- made, borrowed, or sold -- “surveillance ready.” In 2004 the law was updated to be absolutely invasive, an “aberration” within a free and private society. It isn’t illegal for the citizens of Hoosegow City to build TEMPEST-proof devices or to erect or include equipment that will make personal telecommunication devices secure, or more secure, but they can’t buy secure units by the very law that hounds them. What the -- Huh? Sounds like a TUNA casserole. Nero delights in spying on any and everyone because he “has connections with some big TUNAs and you losers don’t. Ha, ha, ha.” Nero also has access to thermal/electromagnetic imaging radar that are satellite based and some complex and giant X-ray devices which are housed in his “cool X-ray trucks,” which drive around the city 24/7 watching unaware citizens having sex, taking showers, and saying things that can get them tortured and/or incarcerated by TUNA and the Thought Police. If any of the citizens of Hoosegow City get uppity or forget their place, or say or write things that TUNA, the Thought Police, or Nero don’t like, Nero’s crew can use a variety of electronic torture devices, directed energy tools that transmit ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and microwave blasts which can turn an unsuspecting citizen’s life (and even a suspecting citizen’s life) into a “hellish comic opera on roller-skates” as Nero likes to tell it chuckling and bubbling over with effluence, er, ebullience (this was another flip-flop of words that Mini slipped into Nero’s infamous speech to the big fish at TUNA that got her tossed in prison). Emperor Nero likes to say this, too: “What’s really cool is that when we’re using these illegal surveillance toys no matter how our targets squirm or cry out there is no place said target can hide, no place where I can’t spy on them and torture the life out of them if they don’t get with the program -- My Program -- or for any other reason. Sometimes I like to zap innocent people, children -- heck even dogs -- just because I can. You should see those losers jump and dance when we blast them. I like to use electronic hypnosis, too, where we can get the perps to act in all kinds of sick ways. It’s a riot.” Nero’s Thought Police are reportedly working on a mass program to force thoughts and actions on an unsuspecting population. However, reports of the success of this program are unreliable for obvious reasons. Nero also likes being able to “read minds.” Super-duper thermal electromagnetic imaging radar can illustrate brain centers that show a rush of or increased activity in thought and so showcase and pinpoint where in the brain general emotions of anger, lust, etc., are initiated and take place. It is as easy to read these signs as it is to distantly monitor the beat of a heart, or “see” high-density blood-flow areas in the body that include physical damage or injury. For instance, Nero knows when his next-door neighbor Clarence Hooley is horny even before Mrs. Hooley knows it and so Nero can pop some popcorn in the microwave before he sits down to “scientifically monitor” what happens next. If women had a portable device like this on a public bus they could well become disgusted or alarmed. After all, there is such a thing as too much creepy knowledge. But, with Nero and the Thought Police patrolling Hoosegow City it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that it won’t be too long before people can be arrested for what they think in the sanctity of their own home -- they’re already being punished for thinking and expressing those same thoughts in private by Nero’s Thought Police. One of Nero’s favorite targets was an old man, reputedly an Egyptian-American, a semi-retired encyclopedia salesman, Sady Rhome (pronounced Say-dee Rome), who liked to go free diving near Fort Bragg, California, a couple times of year for abalone that are no longer there and so he watched a lot of TV about abalone that are still there via re-runs from the eighties. Nero’s Thought Police used thermal imaging radar as an accurate GPS/targeting system and enjoyed zapping Rhome all night long with a wide band of ultrasonic -- which causes nausea, vertigo, dizziness -- and an exacting blast of microwave to the heart, the genitals, the eyes, the brain, the anus, the spine -- which is as painful as being stabbed with an ice pick -- and electromagnetic blasts that caused Rhome to jerk like a marionette or induced a seizure that violently forced him to chip a tooth or bite his tongue. The Thought Police won’t say why Rhome was a target but they loved juicing the guy just because they thought he was an Arab. Rhome was born in Cleveland, so were his parents, although his grandparents on his mother side were born in Pennsylvania, it’s the other set of grandparents that are suspect and are thought to have been from one of those places with a lot of sand, no not Palm Springs or the Pebble Beach Golf Course, but some place like Egypt. Rhome knew the Thought Police were listening and watching and hooting it up and so he baited them -- nothing he could say would ever have induced the perverts to be honorable men -- but the seventy-two-year-old tried. He challenged them to fist fights or attempted to goad them into taking him to court. But, of course, it was all to no avail because the Thought Police would have lost in a courtroom (inasmuch as Rhome hadn’t done anything wrong), they might even have lost a fist fight to a seventy-two-year-old man, and in any truthful public exposure they might have been seen as violent heartless criminals and reprobates, the reality of which is okay with Nero and the Thought Police just as long as nobody can prove it. Rhome figured out that the Thought Police were spying on him before they knew that he knew they were spying on him in the privacy of his own apartment. So, once just for fun he took a jar of scalding hot jalapenos out of the refrigerator and pretended to rub the juice into his groin or his “genital area” while he said this: “Jalapeno juice is the best treatment on earth for genital crabs -- clears them up overnight.” The next day, Rhome identified three of his tormentors/torturers all the way up the block and across the street because they were doddering like ancient bow-legged cowboys with forty-pound testicles. The bad guys were moving so slow they were quickly passed on the sidewalk by a couple old ladies using walkers. The burning pain must have been horrible. Ha ha. So, eventually the Thought Police were going to have to -- alas -- kill the encyclopedia salesman in a conventional way (by gun, knife, eighteen-wheeler, poisoned cheese whiz) and make it look like a drug deal gone bad. But a problem cropped up in the early stages of planning Rhome’s demise. Murder proved to be a bridge too far for Toobie.Out on parole, Mini Disney -- who had never given up on Toobie – told Toobie in a corner booth at McDonald’s: “It’s time to be or not to be, fellah. It’s time: Toobie or not Toobie.” She spelled it out for him, letter by letter, so that her word play wouldn’t be too confusing, because it was/is sort of confusing. “Toobie or not Toobie,” Toobie repeated, zombie-like. Hmmmm? And, that was the beginning of the beginning of how Toobie attempted to redeem himself. Of course, Mini was a good looking woman and had a body on her that could stop a clock-by-bulldozer but in the end Toobie found himself right where he had left himself, going the wrong way down a one-way street of good intentions. It was hard to change directions but it was important to do so and he wanted to do the right thing. Besides, he might get lucky. “Toobie or not Toobie,” he said again, choosing the right path even as he repeated his own name. And, so it was at some point Toobie chose to be even while staring at Mini’s chest (after all, he reasoned forgiving himself this social gaffe, a guy could do the right thing and still be a jerk). Systematically the two Freedom Fighters with a growing number of other Freedom Fighters gathered enough solid evidence to put Nero away for years and then some. They got the goods on the Thought Police, on TUNA, and even gathered enough scientific evidence to prove SUDS was a made-up syndrome. They were elated. Unfortunately, it never occurred to them that even after gathering enough evidence, overwhelming proof that the bad guys did what they did and do, what horrendous crimes the Thought Police commit, that law enforcement in Hoosegow City wouldn’t arrest Nero, or any of the Thought Police, not even anyone at TUNA. Egad. See, it didn’t matter how much evidence Toobie and Mini and the Freedom Fighters gathered and submitted to the police because Nero had special privileges, he was above the law and could commit any crime he liked. No matter what. It was too bad too because Mini had a great victory blurb planned. She was going to say this to Nero: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned -- you scumbag.” And, Toobie was going to say this to his father: “I choose to be over Toobie.” So nothing changed at all in Nero’s piranha-like pursuit and exploration of the bottom of the moral cesspool. Mini went back to prison (for life), Toobie disappeared except for an occasional loafer print on a beach somewhere, once again becoming a figment. The Thought Police came up with a permanent “drug deal gone bad accident” to get rid “of that pesky Arab” Sady Rhome. The nonsmoker fell asleep while smoking in bed, never to arise in this life again. Oh yeah: Nero fiddled (with his thingie) even as Rhome burned -- And, history repeated itself unbeknownst to Nero, the Thought Police, and TUNA, which begets this question: If a history lesson as a massive redwood repeats itself and so falls to earth in the historical forest primeval -- but nobody hears it crash to the ground -- did it make a noise? Huh? Well -- Please sing this ditty to the tune of that famous theme song, George of the Jungle: Bum-bum-ba-ba-ba-bum-bum: WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE! -end-

The above hieroglyphic was found in a Pharaoh’s tomb just outside Cairo in 1897, dating back approximately 3 thousand years to the Westside Sinai Plumbers’ Convention. Its’ intrinsic worth to the ancient Egyptians was portrayed by its simple setting: it was inscribed on a clear wall approximately 18’ x 10’ in an otherwise festive and treasure-cluttered tomb. The figures were life size. There was a small advertisement in the lower right-hand corner advertising a local dentist/blacksmith.

Scholars debated the meaning and/or definition of the emblematic design since the moment of its discovery: speculation and theories ran the spectrum from two Egyptian gods holding up the world to an all-knowing eye conjoined with twin very-slender human appendages.

In the 1970s, a new theory arose purporting the design to be 2 space aliens joined by a mother ship, or 2 waiters carrying a plate with a perfectly round Lima bean on it.

Last year, during a conjuring of heated thoughts and words at a crowded convention rumpus room in Albany, New York, filled with anthropologists, biologists, other scientists and dentists, the mystery was solved when an off-duty janitor walked in, pointed with a crooked finger at the emblematic figures, and said: “Hey, I know what that is. Its two men walking abreast. My wife has two of them.”

Huh?

With that mystery solved the world now debates what did the janitor mean by “two of them?” Two breasts? Two men? Two husbands? Two aliens? What????? Dammit to all what?!!! –end-​Picture/joke: two men walking abreast taken from the public domain.

Please give to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, ASPCA, 6201 Florin Perkins Road/ Sacramento, California 95828/ 1-916-383-7387

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​Captain Christopher by Kevin O'Kendley

You’re in Monaco: you just finished a bottle of Dom Perignon, and so have whetted your appetite. From your balcony table you look out over the Principality, the Mediterranean, and the myriad of yachts, and think what now? Vat now? Vat? Then it hits you: Voila: you order “Maine Lobster by Captain Christopher” -- you rescue yourself from the approaching doldrums, impress the Maître'd, and you and your guests from the House of Windsor are rewarded with le Maine Lobster by Captain Christopher Coppock.As do many connoisseurs of la fine cuisine in Europe, you know of the Captain and his clawed fish but did you know: Free diving at 150 feet Captain Chris attacked and subdued the above pictured lobster with a choke-hold. Within ten, maybe twelve minutes, the brute tapped out (not the Captain but the lobster). Called the Lobster Whisperer by some unstable but interesting characters (this writer and the Captain’s various women) the Captain then, over a period of several years, “rigorously trained” the giant lobster to behave. Frederick Nietzsche (the lobster) learned the hard way to channel his hostility into a comprehensive societal-working form. So, now “Fred” is a watch lobster. God help the uninvited guest that climbs aboard Captain Christopher’s Yacht in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, after nightfall looking for a beer (I lost two fingers). - end -

Autumn By Kevin O’Kendley

In a busy drugstore parking lot, a blue, late model Ford was parked across the highway from Bray’s Brew Pub in Naples, Maine. A large, blonde man with a ponytail, wearing an expensive dark suit and red tie, sat unmoving at the wheel. He expertly whistled and nailed The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. A yellow van pulled into his field of vision, blocking his view of passing traffic and the White Mountains. A little dumpling of a woman got out of the van -- “Get that thing out of here. Move it,” the big man ordered from an open window. Was he joking? No -- The lady saw a grotesque smile, unholy, frightening. She jumped back into her van like the gymnast she’d been some twenty years earlier: She’d be glad when Foliage Season was over and all the leaf peepers went back where they came from. - end -

One man’s graffiti is another man’s Matisse…

Hubert Kevin O’Kendley

Reagan National was on low-hum standby: the collective Whirling Dervish wasn’t whirling: A smiling young guy pushed a mop. An elderly couple leaned against each other in black vinyl chairs asleep or working at it. There were small clusters of baggy-eyed passengers congregating in semi-circles and sleepy-eyed loners walking in full circles. There were some wafting bubbles of conversation popping out here and there, tired, without passion, lulling. The mirror effect of the night-framed windows encapsulated a languorous theater of slowing, slower life and yawwwnning people. The presidential election was over. The black guy was reading the Luck of the Irish by Sol Lowenstein, not that Hubert was being nosy or anything but they were both there after midnight and within ten feet of each other. The intense reader (he didn’t move his lips) was tall and slender, nice clothes, good haircut, not too long, not too short. His carry-on luggage was brief and to the point, though Hubert couldn’t have told you if it was from Wal-Mart or Sak’s Fifth Avenue. There may have been a slight exotic motif to the guy’s tie but then the guy could have been from Chicago or Gary, Indiana. Hubert had a tie on too, a bleak affair -- huh? His tie was gone. When had that happened? Where had it gone? Hmmm? Let’s see? Well, even without a tie he sort of identified with the black man because the guy’s forehead was very prominent, though nothing like Hubert’s -- Since Hubert had a forehead like a bullhead shark: Yeah, he had a Drive-In Movie Screen for a forehead, though his sister, a political junky, Dorothy Bob (she was named after Dorothy Hamel’s haircut, The Dorothy Bob), claimed that there was nothing wrong with Hubert’s forehead. “You’re not Jerry Brown or John McCain but your head isn’t particularly misshapen -- maybe a little knobby.” Dorothy Bob’s brother nodded his lumpy gourd in receipt of this good but hard to believe news because he distrusted his head. He frequently felt that if he nodded too far forward he might topple in that direction because of physics and momentum, and the overall weight-to-size-ratio of his gargantuan forehead. So, when he was young and vulnerable, for reasons of balance, gravity, and the “tipping-over factor” Hubert feared any calisthenics that involved touching his toes, which was problematic for him throughout his school years. He once lamented to his Uncle Ludwig: “Why did God do this to me? Y’know give me a head like a blank freeway billboard.” Ludwig came from a rugged line of Pennsylvania Dutch and it was his job to be firm with the boy. He scratched his jaw and said, “It wasn’t God that ruined your life it was your mother and father.” And there it was. Ludwig claimed that his sister, Hubert’s mother Luella, drank a lot of a very seedy port and his brother-in-law, Hubert’s father Klaus, hand-rolled Bugle cigs for her as fast as she could “puff em” when she’d been pregnant with Hubert (who was named after Hubert Humphrey when he was vice president and a winner, or before he lost the presidential race). Ludwig had been a cook in the U.S. Army. He’d been sent overseas and half a world away to New Jersey (Fort Dix) from their home in Hawaii, that experience, plus east coast winters,and the factoid that he had gone to county jail on the Big Island once for non-payment of alimony made him “no virgin.” In fact, he knew all about cigarettes and many other butt-kicking things that he --insisted-- “I didn’t freakin learn at the Sorbonne.” Though, Hubert thought his uncle’s diatribe crude if not somewhat suspect the information was analyzed and filed away in Hubert’s giant mental vault. He wouldn’t forget: no way Jose. His mental files were like the nut in an Almond Joy: it was there somewhere, safe and sound. Dorothy, Ludwig, and Hubert all had very large heads but Hubert was the only one with a giant forehead. He surmised “scientifically” and early on in his life via constant measurement and a sliding scale that included other peoples’ noggins but never an animal bigger than a chimpanzee (which is where he drew the line) how big his forehead was. It wasn’t that he assumed he was a freak but that he “scientifically” concluded through adequate experimentation that he was. To downplay the massive separation of brow and hairline he wore an early Beatles’ hair style with long dark bangs. He trained his eyebrows to grow in a wider swatch above his miniscule grey eyeballs by rigorously brushing his eyebrows sideways, or from brow line upwards and towards his bangs, and did so five hundred times before going to bed, every night, as he was “no quitter.” Of course, some people thought because of the eyebrow/hair/thing that Hubert “was hiding something” or “appeared to be hiding something” which was okay with him as long as “they” didn’t know that it was his “forehead he was hiding,” or what was the point of the whole “hiding-the-forehead-thing” anyway? His hairstyle, however, was often problematic in that if he scared small children or dogs or potential dates he couldn’t be sure if it was his forehead or his haircut. When he was in the ninth grade, a very cruel neighbor found out Hubert had come to believe through a series of mishaps and a Limp Id Impetus Syndrome that he had a big forehead. So, the cruel neighbor told Hubert that “you look like you swallowed a football helmet that got stuck inside your head -- your mother obviously got hammered when she got knocked up. Heck, your forehead must have weighed -- by itself -- fifteen pounds at birth.” Then, the cruel neighbor made popping noises and agonizing whoops imitating a woman giving birth to a fifteen-pound forehead and screaming at the sight of the monstrosity: Aaaahhhhhhhhhh -- The pantomime was hideous and mentally scarring, and Hubert never forgot it. The neighbor’s name was Sal Knucklehampster, which the neighborhood kids shortened as soon as possible to the Knuckle Hamster, and then just the Hamster. The Hamster was a suspected pervert: his ex-wife and mother-in-law suspected him and told everyone that they did so without any evidence and for many-many years though he was probably only a very minor pervert since he didn’t even own a raincoat. The Hamster once toured the country as part of the nationally renowned singing/musical group, Up with Tito and the Yugos. He was a tenuous tenor that was eventually fired for dropping his pants on stage in Cleveland, though he claimed it was a “snap and belt malfunction probably due to Cleveland’s eclectic position regards True North and its magnetic fields and said reversible properties within the Lake Eerie pale of circumnavigation.” The Hamster used to put up suggestive pictures of Alfred E. Newman wherever Hubert might see them because of Newman’s expansive forehead. It was supposed to be an insult though Hubert thought it was just a series of accidental pictures of “the guy on the cover of Mad Magazine,” and didn’t tumble to the insult part of this horrific travesty until Sal had a skateboard accident on his own driveway and thought he was going to die and so confessed way too much to Hubert. When he didn’t die (the stubbed toe didn’t actually kill him) he told Hubert his “confession had been delirium imposed upon my delicate frame by great forces of ungodly natural achievements of the third kind.” Even so and for years later every time Hubert saw a picture of Alfred E. Newman he looked around for The Hamster or any sign of him. Once he found little droppings in a bread drawer that could have been hamster poop but discounted this as “illegitimate evidentiary material and probably coincidental.” Once, however, he found a shoe print outside his bedroom window or right underneath a picture of Alfred E. Newman taped to a window pane but a chuckling neighborhood watch officer (The Hamster’s cousin Luge) told him that it wasn’t “forensic evidence but sit on it and maybe you’ll hatch an egg like Horton.” After years of banging his head against the wall of occupational misdirection, dead ends, and because his forehead “disfigurement” sometime caused job search self-paralysis in regards his first love, the “agrarian furniture business,” he settled for working in international advertising. But, he was unhappy with “slogan engineering” and “selling sand to skeptical buyers in Saudi Arabia.” One day after walking by the Swiss Embassy in New York City he had an epiphany, and because of his simpatico nature, Hubert said to himself (this monologue didn’t startle passersby because he was -- remember -- in New York City), “I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to work for the Red Cross.” He found his calling too: while he couldn’t do anything about his forehead he could do something to help other people. Over time he decided not to get married and risk passing down his recessive and debilitating “genetic” forehead trait (unless they were in part or in whole a birth defect due his mother’s party habits) and so destroy the life of an innocent child by gifting him or her a giant snow cone of a forehead. But this wasn’t an entirely bad thing: he had more time and energy to devote to the Red Cross and in helping others. When The Hamster, whose life turned out to be not all it was “cracked up to be” (as he had become an aluminum siding salesman in Marin County, California, where everything is made of redwood), found out that Hubert was working for the Red Cross in places of natural and unnatural calamity or wherever people needed him both in the U.S. and in foreign countries, he sent Hubert various postcards meanly suggesting that Hubert “put a big red cross on your fat forehead you showoff so that you can signal rescue crews from miles away like a ginormous forehead beacon.” At first Hubert was somewhat offended, there was nothing that he could do about his forehead, but then his better nature suggested this to him: “Logistically, that might not be a bad idea.” So he painted a giant red cross on his forehead, which is how he ended up on the cover of Time Magazine -- When he became: “The Forehead of Hope.” A famous but overly emotional THINK TANK sub-contracted a surveillance satellite to keep tabs on a Catholic school in Montana where some radical or just-frenetic nuns (Sisters of Mercy) were said to be wearing black kaffiyehs (Arab head-dresses). News reports of a nearby but unrelated tragedy changed the satellites target and it zeroed in on his head; then dispensed landing co-ordinates to helicopters and other rescue apparatus which pulled a floundering busload of visiting Mattapan-American bankers out of the Missouri River, just past Great Falls. The rescuers believed they saved all except for the vice president of a small savings and loans from New Philadelphia, Ohio. However, he later turned up in Dover, Ohio, having missed the trip to Montana because he was having an affair with his wife’s orthodontist. Hubert must have been daydreaming about all of this when he suddenly found himself standing a couple of feet from the black guy with the slightly exotic tie. Hubert stared down at his size 20 shoes, the prospective airline passenger looked up at Hubert and said warmly, “Hey, the guy from Time Magazine -- I thought that was you. Howareyou?” Hubert was embarrassed about being recognized but answered diligently, “Good, uh, and how are you?” “Fine, fine -- my sister told me if I ever ran into you to tell you that you should comb those bangs back, lose the eyebrows, and show off that magnificent forehead of yours. She loves guys with big frontal lobes -- y’know a big forehead. Give her a call.” He stood up politely and slowly, possibly Hubert figured so as not to spook any stray wallabies running around the airport, since roaming wallabies had become a real problem at Reagan National after mischievous Australia tourists set two of the rapidly breeding marsupials free in an airport bar nine months earlier (like Beverly Hills, Australia was settled by convicts). “This is her private number.” The black guy handed Hubert a business card. “Her name is Halle Berry. She’s in Indianapolis right now on a Fact Finding Mission -- hey, she’s been writing you for over a year now but hasn’t gotten a reply.” Hubert was stunned: he looked down at his huge feet again (he was wearing bellbottom pants to make his shoes look smaller) and tried to get a grip -- the news was absolutely amazing. “Huh? I thought it was my old neighbor The Hamster -- y’know a joke. I didn’t know it was really Halle Ber” -- “No. No. She loves your forehead -- she calls it the Dynamic Dichogamous Dickcissel Devoir Dome.” Hubert didn’t know what to say. Halle Berry? Dynamic Dickogam-er-Dickcis-uh Devah Dome? In other words his forehead wasn’t a birth defect? His misshapen skull wasn’t a preconceived and irrational inconvenience designed as a debilitating social anchor effective in even in the deepest of cultural waters? His Mt. Baldy had merit, maybe even some sort of abstract beauty? His forehead? Wow. Not only that but he actually had a poster of Ms. Berry in a bathing suit from a James Bond movie on his bedroom wall. Wow again. “Oh my,” he stammered, and not knowing what to say he added this instead: “Uh, well, you must be happy with the results of this evening’s presidential election, huh?” “Hmmm?” the black man’s hmmm could have been in consideration of a point of umbrage in regards Hubert’s well-meant but sloppily erected and, ah, possibly, overbearing and certainly suggestive word structure. However, Halle’s brother, Barry Berry, smiled politely and answered, “Well, not really. I voted for Romney because of his big forehead.” “Oh,” Hubert mumbled, “I voted for Obama.” Barry Berry stood up. There was a dead-quiet freeze-frame moment like a sudden lack of oxygen to the brain of a charging elephant -- Then: “Well done,” the two men agreed vigorously shaking hands. “Excellent. Well done.” All of which just goes to show that one man’s objet defectueux is another man’s objet d’art, and you can vote for whoever you want to in this country (for the time being) -- And it doesn’t do you any good what so friggin ever to blame your parents for everything, even if you do have a humongous forehead. -end-

Near the Khandala Hill Station, a traveling American blacksmith first called the exuberant little girl “a conundrum.” The classically trained pipefitter from Sacramento wasn’t mean; in fact he seemed a very friendly fella, ask anyone. He actually saved the life of a Brahma calf and a mama cow, both suffering from pink eye, for just the hind-quarter of a roasted pig, some beer, and three British Raj-era horse shoes (though no one in those parts had seen a three-legged horse for a very long time). Nobody knows for sure why the nickname Conundrum stuck but it could have been because the little kid had -- you know -- two heads, though that’s just a guess. Dark-eyed Setya Priyanka grew up to be a striking woman. She was both right and left headed but unlike Siamese Twins both of her heads, minds, belonged to the same person, or to a “single human entity for insurance purposes except not for prescription eyeglasses: said codicil is supposed to change under the Affordable Care Act.” All four of her eyeballs, uniformly, could follow you around the room when you moved unless she wanted to mess with you a little and then, of course, she might operate each eyeball independently. The California blacksmith called the eyes gone wild thing “zany but electrifying.” Dangerfield Kalockna FitzGeraldstein, the son of an Irish Rabbi and an Estonia-American mid-wife (the all-comers nine-ball champion of The Greater Bangor Area, 1989-1992/2003-2007), was drinking Indian tea with cream and sugar at a sidewalk café while scoping out Mombai babes. He had Type One Diabetes and had just speared the side of his index finger to take a dollop of blood when he first spotted Drum on a tumultuous thoroughfare of humanity -- Wow: even across the street he was stunned by her two-headed beauty. Instead of responsibly testing his blood sugar as he was taught (at the Eastern Maine Medical Diabetes and Endocrine Center) he jumped up and scrambled across the street barely dodging a pedi-cab, a Citroen, and a wild-eyed panhandler with an eye patch. Though he was a habitually kind gentleman, to reach the two-headed beauty he had to push his way through throngs of boulevardiers, thereby risking the stigma/label of Ugly American.

Sidebar A: The Ugly American concept was a Soviet ploy used during the Cold War to disenfranchise our way of life, cause us immense dubbing difficulties with our movies especially in North Korea, and like an avalanche, to damage or hinder our dating opportunities overseas. This was done, of course, before Mother Russia turned to capitalism and shrugged off the yoke of totalitarianism; at which juncture she was forced by free market riptides to adapt a creative standard of advertising using more Machiavellian sales pitches to promote an idea or product instead of just ramming it down the consumer’s throat with Gulag accuracy. For instance, say, ah, if you were selling a particular brand of soda pop here in America you wouldn’t say “buy our brand because the other brand stinks.” This method of marketing might instill within a “consumer’s” mind a choice of brands only as “a lesser of two evils.” So a “consumer” might bypass soda pop altogether and drink milk. This would be fiscal suicide for the soda business in a free market… However, the more milk “consumed” the more milk cows at large (you know the supply and demand Adam Smith thing). The more milk cows the more methane gas; the more methane gas in the atmosphere the greater impact on global warming. On the flip side, with a more robust “consumption” of soda we’d have an exponentially greater human methane gas increase within the atmosphere, the wear and tear of trousers and skirts at the buttocks, and a subsequent impact on global warming too. Of course with the soda impact on the human physiology, our overall health-care costs are impacted (dentist, false teeth, tummy tucks, Type Two Diabetes, etc.). The more health-care engines and infrastructure employed the greater the power outlay, the greater the power outlay the greater the impact on global warming. With milk the production facilities power consumption hurts the environment, not to mention the chiropractor manipulation of the farmers’ lower backs and hands (after years of milking), and of course the transportation pollution committed by the farmer’s vehicle traveling to the chiropractor and then to a bar… In any case: You’re right -- as a responsible advertiser you’d sell your brand this way, “Our brand is extraordinary and excellent.” You might lie a little bit and claim: “Our soda brushes and flosses your teeth even as you drink it” or “Processed sugar is good for you,” but even if the Federal Trade Commission lets you get away with it Laura Bush and Michelle Obama will not. With chocolate or strawberry milk you can advertise: “It came that way,” because it might have milk in it. Socio-political international advertising slogans can be effective too: A couple of our best slogans during the Cold War aimed at the Soviets were acts of genius: “better dead than red” and the “Soviets are peckerheads.” However, as our world has become smaller and more civilized and advertising more advanced one of the few anomalies left within the formula of “selling” a regular “consumer” the lesser of two evils is in politics. For instance: you might vote for someone because she or he is not as bad as the next guy but you won’t drink a soda pop for the same reason -- Not unless you’re a dumb shit. Where were we? Oh yeah: End of Sidebar A.

Dangerfield rifled through his pockets -- rats -- all he had was a “church key” a combination bottle top popper and wedge-shaped metal cutter (with a triangular fang) that was a necessity in opening metal cans back before the mass deployment of the poptop.

Sidebar B: Ermal Frazee of Ohio invented the first pull tab or pop top way back in1959. The pull tab, which separated from the can, caused an environmental catastrophe -- millions of little glittering metal teardrops all over the country. Cows would eat grass with pull tabs in it. Anyone old enough to remember drinking a glass of milk and swallowing a metal pull tab won’t soon forget it. Pull tabs are still being excreted in some metropolitan areas like Pittsburgh, Boise, Ogden, and Fort Lauderdale. Fortunately, the nightmare of this horrendous litter was solved by the pop top, which stays in the can as returnable green assets. This type of “consumer friendly” unit or can as it is called in the United States (except in South Boston where the can is a jail or “jail cell,” or in Des Moines where the can is a hopper or “toilet”) is still used by beer and soda companies (but not milk farmers) all over the world. Let’s proceed: End of Sidebar B --

Dangerfield surreptitiously dropped the church key on the crowded sidewalk, stooped, picked it up and said to Drum, pushing two fellas native to the area out of the way, “Did you drop this?” and, damn, those four eyes of hers hooked him then and there -- He was smitten -- “Yes I did,” she smiled, and promptly took the church key, dropping it in her pocket. She stalked off leaving Dangerfield on that Bombay, er, Mombai sidewalk, standing alone, not unlike an un-oiled tin man in the swift river of a massive cornucopia of the Indian human collage overflowing with life -- Whew. Man, what a woman -- She could run, too. By the time Dangerfield caught up with her fourteen blocks later he was light-headed -- low blood sugar -- and had to take a glucose tablet to pull himself out of an impending diabetic shock. As he fell to the sidewalk, she stopped, decided quickly, and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (she was a Hindu remember). She sucked in air from one mouth and exhaled from the other (because of the two heads thing). Coincidentally Drum’s father had been an Indian mid-wife or in American slang, an automechanic. As Dangerfield “came to” he tried to slip in a little tongue but Drum wouldn’t go for it; however, she got over it and the rest is history, more-or-less. One of the things that Dangerfield liked right off about Drum was her “take charge” attitude, which allowed her to be both the front seat driver and the back seat driver simultaneously. On a metaphysical plane, there was also this: Drum was one of the few people Dangerfield knew that could actually talk to herself without being accused of being mentally ill, unlike many single-headed people that can be regarded by other single-headed people as being stark raving nuts for talking to themselves or to a plant, or even to TV newscasters (except for Telemundo).

Sidebar C: Hmm? Well? Uh, nevermind. End of Sidebar C.

She was witty, too, had a body like Colleen Camp in the blockbuster movie Clue (1985 release, screenplay by John Landis and Jonathan Lynn), and of course she had the two heads-thing going for her, which was nothing to scoff at. In return, Drum liked men with big butts, leonine hair, penetrating near-sided eyes, and hearts of gold, which described Dangerfield fairly well. It may have been “a match made by the Three Stooges” but there was real magic in this love affair, and time did tell. Also: Drum could drink a beer with one set of lips while whistling show tunes with the other. She could do Popeye and Olive Oyl at the same time, which was a riot. She could give Dangerfield a kiss on the lips while simultaneously chewing on his ear. And, every now and then, aided by her incredible multiple eyesight, Drum found loose change and maps of Switzerland under bar stools. Once, the two lovers were out dancing in Bombay (now Mumbai), nuzzling cheek-to-cheek listening to the Bruce Springsteen and Liam Neeson hit of These Boots are Made forWalking, made famous by Tina Sinatra (Frank’s daughter), bolstered by drum solos courtesy of the St. Louis Cardinal Relief Pitching Staff and a bagpipe crescendo orchestrated by several incognito cast members of the Today Show wearing Ninja outfits, while she found three hundred rupees in loose change. New to India, Dangerfield screamed, “Yee haw,” until he found out it was only about fifty cents American and so ended up buying just one Kingfisher (a beer). Still, a free beer is something you shouldn’t underestimate. However, there was a downside to having two heads: For instance, some hat check services actually charge a cover for a second hat. Cultural sports industries like NASCAR, football, hockey, The Preakness, only issue one helmet per person, even a horse can’t get more than one. And, if you have two heads in the United States (and in India) you still have only one vote, unless you’re officially dead and in Chicago and can prove it. India doesn’t recognize Chicago as a voting district in Indian elections. But, is that really Constitutional? We’ll have to wait on the Supreme Court. In the meantime we can defer to India’s judgment, or -- To Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?” Drum faced bigger “multiple head” problems, too: A memorable cultural scene took place when a Red Sox fan sitting behind Drum in Fenway Park yelled, “Move your heads,” and not, “Move your head.” This, of course, confused other people sitting around Drum who moved their heads this way and that way even as the “irate fan” kept yelling at them to “move your heads.” Once underway, a whole section of normally very polite Red Sox fans shook and shimmied with their heads bee-bopping in rhythm to the blunt force suggestions of this “irate fan,” until, en masse, the crowd rose and sat, rose and sat, mimicking “human waves,” thereby inventing the “WAVE” in sports, in the demolition derby, some churches, and in strip joints. The “WAVE,” which swept the ball park, was caught on video by a penny stock investor in the throes of a “crisis of faith vis-a-vis Wall Street.” Depressed, the stockbroker could have stayed home and gotten drunk but elected to get drunk and see a Red Sox game instead. At first, Red Sox management claimed that there were no “irate fan(s) in Fenway -- whattya crazy -- what the hell do you mean by that crap? You tryin to start sumpthin? I’m from Mattapan.” And, then by exclamation point: “This is America not England, you friggin derelict.” However, beginning with a worldwide Odyssey, from Cincinnati to Singapore, the footage went viral and in just days, under the caption, “Bobbleheads at Fenway,” the event became legendary. Two weeks after “the video” appeared on YouTube, the drunken investor’s financial crisis was over. Three weeks later, “BobbleHeadsatFenway” became a word in the Webster’s Dictionary meaning: (1) when someone yells at the wrong person and that person believes he or she is the right person and so mistakenlyreacts to irrational orders not specific to that person; (2) whenswarms of people participate in a fan wave induced by an “irate fan” yelling at a two-headed woman. Four weeks later, BobbleheadsatFenway became one of the most popular newborn’s names in the Highland region of Papua New Guinea and in the Liberty’s section of Dublin. Five weeks later, the Boston Red Sox had four million new fans world-wide. Six weeks later, British tabloids gave credit to the Chicago White Sox for inventing the “FAN WAVE” choosing not understand the difference between red and white in the American or “colonial version” of English -- Which, caused real problems between Chicago and Boston for a time, and of course Gary (Indiana) and Rhode Island got in on the cluster fug, too, choosing sides. Gary chose Milpitas, California, and Rhode Island chose Maui. There was a time when a good Jew with a single head and a good Hindu with two heads still faced some social obstacles in the United States within the area of cohabitation and in Big Time Wrestling arenas. Dangerfield and Drum weren’t professional wrestlers so that part didn’t really matter. But they did want to live together and marry someday… During the Carter Administration, even though Drum might have been protected as two people in civil rights paperwork, the paper outlay for a marriage license would have been disastrous, reams of it. However, a single marriage for Drum could have been bigamy for Dangerfield when Ronald Reagan was president. So, it was a push. Like other pilgrims searching for sanctuary at the time the two love birds moved to Whitefish, Montana. They found a nice double-wide in the forest with propane heat, a view, a ham radio antenna, and were allowed to move in with just a damage deposit if they first installed peel and stick linoleum in the kitchen and the bathroom which they did: Fleur de lis Extravaganza, soft rosebud that matched the drapes in the kitchen. Outside of the initial wrangling as to whether or not Drum counted as two people (she didn’t) at Luigi’s Smorgasbord (every Wednesday: All You Can Eat Night for $4.57 a plate) things went very well in Whitefish. Dangerfield told Drum: “As a Jew I think there might be something about the name Whitefish but I just can’t put my finger on it.” The Dynamic Duo loved Luigi’s, a log-style barn, big enough for a couple of tractors and assorted ranch vehicles, and not far from the train station. The long bar was at one end, had studded stools, neon signs, and there were rows of checker-cloth covered tables all over the place. In the waiting area at the front with couches and chairs was an entrance-hallway of double doors. On the walls there were framed pictures of cattle drives, cowboys, big timber, mountain sheep, big-hair ladies, and majestic mountains with more mountain sheep. The place was light and airy with windows on three sides. They’d lived in Montana for about six months when, just moments following an hours’ long Rocky Mountain spring deluge, at about five o’clock, for inscrutable reasons of his own, Luigi asked Dangerfield, “How many stomachs does she got?” Dangerfield shrugged. “How many hon?” he asked Drum, smiling. Drum dramatically held up her middle finger. She was pregnant, which of course Dangerfield knew as his mother was a pool-playing midwife and his father an Irish rabbi in Maine who performed circumcisions if he absolutely without-a-doubt had to. Dangerfield worked at the Bridge Medical Diabetes Treatment Center in Whitefish and knew that the baby wasn’t actually in the stomach (technically); it was in the spleen (just kidding). Still smiling, Dangerfield told Luigi, “One.” “Yeah,” Luigi Dumbroski laughed (possibly for business reasons), relieved, “I can see that alright.” Then: “Mako. Two meals on the house. Uh, one beer apiece.” It was said of Luigi that while he was hospitable he wasn’t “a foolish businessman,” which was why it wasn’t two beers apiece (though Drum probably would have refused in that she was pregnant and it was after 1980 or after the historical tipping point of acceptable pre-birth behavior for a pregnant woman). Just then a long train whistle screeched through the restaurant -- Drum mimicked the eerie wheezing blast with both mouths, “HHhhonnnnnnn-eee-onnnnk.” It was a very accurate imitation too -- Dangerfield and Luigi stood there mouths agape, Luigi dumbfounded and Dangerfield prideful. “Wow, after all these years,” Drum’s live-in boyfriend said, shaking his head in wonder and smiling. His libido was instantly galvanized like one of those monkeys on Gibraltar but he stayed cool, and crouched. However, he did say wistfully, “After all these years, babe” -- “I’ll bet,” Luigi answered, still awestruck. “I’ll bet.” Dangerfield suggested, “Do the dove calls Drum. They’re a riot.” “Okay,” she laughed. When Drum laughed it was in stereo, a beautiful thing to hear. “Watch this.” She crossed all four eyes and stuck two rolled tongues out from her mouths. The tubular red things undulated and became living trumpets: and then there were dove calls. She meant no harm but -- A passerby, a tall lady in a sun dress fainted and fell to the pinewood floor. Ka-pow. In a fetal ball she murmured something about nightmare heads. Concerned but galvanized to help, Drum dropped to one knee -- Faintly: “Talking heads with trumpet tongues,” the lady on the floor whispered hoarsely. “It’s okay dear.” Drum studiously checked the lady’s vitals in the sun dress: the subject was pale, trembling, her eyelids fluttered. A small crowd gathered. Someone said, “It’s Bunratty -- it might be diabetic shock.” Dangerfield thought: Looks like it could be and immediately knelt down next to the lady. He took her pulse. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched whine ending with a pounding thunk. Dangerfield looked at Drum, but -- “It’s the sump pump,” Luigi blanched. “The back-up is busted -- oh no, the kitchen will flood.” “We’re out of meatballs and ravioli:” came a distraught but fierce voice near the smorgasbord line -- For a brief moment, with the blue light of a Coors sign and an illuminated picture of mountain rams pounding heads like Congresspersons in the “proverbial aisle” and at an acute angle behind him, a dramatic Luigi, looking a lot like Captain Horatio Hornblower on the bridge of the Hotspur back in the days when it was iron men and wooden ships, said, “I’ll take care of it.” Dangerfield pricked a spot in the meat of the lady’s thumb and took a blood sample on a small test strip. He inserted the strip into a palm-size meter. The lady’s blood sugar registered at sixty. Given the circumstances, Dangerfield elected to give “Bunratty” a concentrated glucose tablet and not a shot of glucogon -- “Kitchen’s flooding boss!” Drum grabbed Luigi’s hand as he moved towards the kitchen, and said with emotion, “If you have an intake hose and an outflow hose I can suck up the water through one mouth and expel it from the other while you establish a bucket brigade.” Drum’s mother had been a plumber in India. There was a glint of fight in Luigi’s dark eyes, he said, “Let’s do it Drum.” And, the restaurant became tribe, a people, a community in action! Flying like the old roller derby hotshot that he’d once been, Luigi and head line cook, Mako, restocked the ravioli and meatball pans on the smorgasbord line. A couple dining out, the O’Briens’ of Miles City, helped in the kitchen with the bucket brigade -- as did a waiter, Mikey, and a dishwasher, Clive Bertrand Russell, and just-arriving Kathy, Luigi’s fourth wife if you didn’t count the annulment from Suzan Sturgeon (a Russian immigrant only in the States for the summer and then on to Luxembourg to marry a Finnish Nigerian) when Luigi was sixteen. Drum did as she promised -- not only did she suck it up but she expelled it just as fast. A real sump pump couldn’t have done a better job, and there were those that told her so. In fact, once the word got around town regarding her marketable skill her home-based business of testing brass instruments -- trumpets, tubas, French horns -- exploded like that part in the William Tell Overture where “Tonto saves the Lone Ranger from drowning in a Dodge City mud puddle after the Masked Man had too much peach brandy to drink.” The lady in the sun dress came around. Bunratty’s blood sugar rose. She got up from the deck, and though a weary fighter she shrugged it off. Later that night she made two trips through the chow line no worse for wear. Arnold Klopter brought over a sump pump from his auto supply store across the street, and Drum stood down. Dangerfield was enormously proud of his girlfriend. He also understood why, later in the evening, she didn’t want any beverage with her dinner and didn’t try to force a beer on her. While eating Colorado sugar beets -- she was a pregnant Hindu remember -- Drum said to Dangerfield, “It doesn’t matter if you’re American and I’m Indian, let’s get married. It’s 1992 for Jimminy’s sake.” “Yes,” Dangerfield said. “Yes! Let’s get married.” Wow -- What a night, what a restaurant, what a smorgasbord, and what a family… Right on cue and from the big screen TV over the bar catastrophic news blared out, from CNN’s Barbara Starr, upon the unsuspecting diners: “Uranus -- uh, Uranusians, or Mercurians, or, uh, Jupiteranians, er, Jupiteranians have landed in Flathead Lake, Montana. Please be advised that Juper -- oh the heck with it -- the Martians have landed in Flathead Lake.” There was a stunned silence. After all that they’d been through and now the Juper -- Martian’s were in Montana? What the? Luigi shrugged his ex-roller derby shoulders, and with a firm eye said, “Who the freakin heck cares about a bunch of invading Martians?” Shock suddenly dissipated, fearful looks turned to chuckles: First Drum and then Dangerfield, then Luigi and Kathy, the O’Briens, Mr. Klopter, and finally a line of cheerful celebrants/diners, infected with glee, were laughing out loud. HHHOwling. The next morning the Martians were gone -- vamoosed -- reportedly chased out of Flathead Lake by some irate anglers from the Rez, a couple of naked artists in Lone Pine, a drunken cowboy that drove his ’62 Pontiac into the lake (subsequently roping it and sustaining a hernia while pulling it single-handedly from forty feet of water), a skydiver (Ed Henry) from Fox News looking for Kalispell, and a few pre-summer boaters rumored to be from Canada (the boats but not the Canadians were substantiated by Professional Bowling Association satellite surveillance photos). But now hear this: Martians or no Martians, Luigi’s Restaurant and Saloon stood strong (lasagna: all you can eat; $4.77 on Monday nights), opened on time the very next day with Luigi at the helm, Mako in the kitchen, and a new sump pump (made in China) on duty.

Sidebar D: A month later two New Zealanders in an ultra-light aircraft wearing raggedy space alien costumes landed in New Orleans. One Kiwi yelled up to air traffic control upon touchdown, “What a flippin Mardi Gras, mate -- we’re lucky to be alive.” End of Sidebar D. -end-

The Yank, a connoisseur of good oxygen, pulled the saltwater mix into his lungs and exhaled just as slowly. In the gray distance tendrils of water color feathered down from the storm to the Irish Sea: it was raining way out there. Driven by the wind, Rorschach clouds morphed, changed again, even as the psycho melee advanced on Wales. There -- flashes of lighting: jagged fingers striking the edge of the world where the ocean existed even past sight. As age to youth, the thunder came following, dim and unimpressive, small hollow echoes with hardly any ooom in the boom…

A burly man in an Irish-style tweed cap, thick gray coat, held the hand of a small boy and in his other, a duffel bag. Shaggy brown-hair attached by neck to a red coat belonged to the kid of about twelve carrying a frayed briefcase. The boy looked up at the middle-aged man who looked back. “Grandpa how much longer?” he asked.

The boy’s accent wasn’t Irish --

But, the grandfather’s was: “Five, ten minutes Jimmy. Got any money?”

“No,” the boy laughed.

“I could sure use some -- got your crisps?”

“I do.”

“Go at it then.”

The grandson took his hand back and the grandfather set the duffle down. They were standing in a queue in the Irish Ferries building waiting for the boat to Dublin. A low chatter of conversation, nothing madding, was accentuated by frequent laughter. The boy was watching everything with enjoyment and curiosity.

The Yank smiled.

Yawning, the grandfather half-turned towards the window, saw the American, grinned, and with hazel eyes he looked the man up and down but not rudely -- it was a quick and friendly inspection. “Yank is it?”

“I shouldn’t either, but I heard about a man that died with a twenty-five pound liver and I’m, ah, a competitive guy.”

The Irishman blinked. “That sounds like something I’d say.” He looked the Yank in the eye searching for something -- ahhh -- and burbled up a Popeye chuckle. “I prob’ly got you both beat. Liver and onions for alla Dublin Town when I go.”

The Yank laughed. With his hatchet nose, blue eyes, and brown-stubble square-chin he looked like an original Dubliner, a Viking. The American stuck out a hand, and said, “My name is Jackson Bergstrom. Call me Jax.”

“This is my grandson Jimmy, and I’m Angus Og.” The three shook hands all the way around. “Hey, when we get aboardI’ll grab a table -- if you’d like to sit with us, that is.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

They found a table with four chairs and occupied three in the main cabin. Outside the large starboard windows the harbingers of the approaching storm went mad dancing on whitecaps. Inside, coats were tossed over the backs of padded chairs with luggage here and there, though not placed purposely to trip anyone up.

“This is Jimmy’s first trip over the water.”

Excitement ran amok over the kid’s face. Jimmy turned eagerly to watch the ocean. Angus idly looked around the cabin.

Standing, Jax asked, “Anyone want anything? I’m goin to the bar?”

After taking orders and sliding through the crowd -- he used to be a clarinet player in the University of Minnesota marching band -- the Yank felt a relaxation of spirit: he was on the move, traveling. He smiled with an exhalation of freedom, losing a residual tension he thought was already gone.

The lady working the bar had a Ukrainian or Russian accent. She also had almond shaped -- mystical -- brown eyes. When she smiled Jackson knew for sure he’d made the right decision to go on his European walkabout -- he got lost in that smile for a moment, remembered to breathe, and ordered American sodas and an Irish beer. He paid in Euros.

Back at the round table, Jimmy was busy coloring a horse with a green saddle. Angus was reading the Irish Times. There was a pack of Player cigarettes atop a paperback -- a Western, Louis L’Amour. Jax put the drinks down.

Angus set his paper down. “Says in the paper they got spy satellites that can tell what a stoat had for dinner.”

“What’s a stoat?”

“A weasel.”

“Huh?”

“They got remote electronic psyops that can put bats in your belfry in a fortnight.”

“Yeah? What’s a fortnight?”

“Two weeks.”

“Hmmm?”

“These psyop’s fellahs can get the Pope to plead guilty to doubt on Easter. Or Hugh Hefner to turn his back on hedonism.”

“Hedonism?”

Angus looked at Jimmy who was still busy coloring; now creating blue clouds. “Hedonism, y’know what I mean.” Angus wiggled his eyebrows and traced a line across his lips with a forefinger signifying sshhhhhh and don’t say anathingin front of the kid.

Angus chuckled. “Same here Yank.” He hoisted up his Coke for a toast. “We drink to your coffin: May it be built from the wood of a hundred-year-old oak tree that I shall plant tomorrow.”

“Nice one.” Jax took a long swallow from a bottle of Harp. “Give me an extra week or two before you plant the tree, though. Okay? I need as much time as possible to get things right.”

“Sure. Sure Yank.” Angus smiled, searching the humming and buzzing crowd and then smiling softly. “They got little teensy weensy electronic dragonflies now with spy cameras on their teensy weensy tiny heads. See what that does for your hedonism the next time you see one flyin around your bedroom window and you’re lucky enough to be with a lady.” Angus shook his head with a look of disgust.

“Scary, very scary -- you a scientist?

“No. Just paranoid -- on Holiday are you?”

“Yeah. I guess. Got fired.” It didn’t show much on the outside but it had busted him up on the inside. “I worked at Georgia Power for eight years. Well, I got laid off, not quite the same thing.”

“What’d you do?”

“Lineman around the Atlanta area.” He liked his job more than he had thought but didn’t know that until it was gone. Imagine that. “You?”

“Glen Campbell.” Angus smiled, and sang: “I’m a lineman for the coun-teee.” Then: “I’m a bricklayer in Liverrrpooool.” He stopped singing, and said, “Jimmy lives with me and my cousin” --

Jimmy looked up. Angus tousled his hair. “We’re a family. My cousin Peggy is a saint but we, uh, don’t watch the same programs on the telly if you know what I mean. I like BBC-1 she likes RTE. I like football -- what you Yanks call soccer -- and she likes books.”

Jax nodded slowly within a widening smile.

Angus continued, inhaling, exhaling: “Divorced. One daughter.”

“Bachelor. Had a girlfriend. Nurse. Went to Memphis, uh, the Danny Thomas, ah, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. I stayed in Georgia. No kids.” Jax left it at that, smiling tightly.

“Sorry to hear it Yank. What’re you about thirty?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Fifty going on seventy.”

“I woulda taken you for thirty-nine.”

“G’wan witcha.”

Jax smiled, he already liked Angus. He was enjoying the conversation and working on his Harp. “Og. That’s an unusual name.”

“It’s an ancient Celtic name. Let’s see: Jackson’s an English name, no, Scottish. There are Jacksons in Northern Ireland. Bergstrom is Scandinavian.”

“Jackson is American. My parents named me after a cement plant in Iowa. Huh? Never thought about it before but the friggin place went out of business.”

Angus liked that one: he chuckled off-key. “Well you don’t want life to be too easy cuz it spoils all the suspense -- hey, gonna go for a smoke. My last real vice. Outside. The stern. Wanna go? Hey, Jimmy coat and hat on unless Jax stays to watch you.”

“Yeah I’ll go,” the American said.

Grandpa started to bundle Jimmy up: “You can leave your duffel Yank, no one will nick it -- hey, uh, wait.” Angus turned, took a couple of steps and said loud enough to a big fella a few tables over, “Anthony, it’s me Angus.”

“Og is it? Sure, I thought it was you. It’s been a long long time.” The big middle-aged man in suit and Roman collar and a Tom Selleck mustache, added smiling large, “I thought you were dead.”

“I was Father. Got killed by a chargin rhino in Africa, owed me fifty P on a horse race. Got bored in Hell though, came back on the back of a Phoenix” --

Father Boyle was laughing lightly as he got up from his chair. “Angus, you heathen, it’s good to see you.” The priest came over and the two men shook hands.

“Good to see you too Father -- goin for a smoke. Keep an eye on the boy here, my grandson Jimmy? Give ya a quid.”

The dynamic duo then went topside out into the coming storm: the shipmates pushed through a glass door. The boat was headed into steepening swells and there was a lazy pitch and roll but it wasn’t much. The wind lashed the deck and whipped the wooden benches. The air was sodden but there was no rain yet. They were alone. With an expert hand the Irishman lit a Players’ cigarette, cupping and so housing the flame from the wind. He drew-in a deep lungful of smoke with all the various percolating carcinogens in the mix. He smiled, satisfied: “Gotta love these coffin nails.”

The Yank nodded. He didn’t smoke. “I drink,” he shrugged: too much.

“You think?”

​“Sometimes.”

​“What rhymes?”

“Never mind.”

“O-kay.”

The weather was becoming calamitous but the first splatters of rain were just then making a run down the length of the ship. Steady and quick gusts of wind were strafing the main deck and blowing any loose papers into any corner --

A sea funnel neared the starboard side of the ship. The compact tempest crouched and sprang, grew smaller and larger, finally to leap out of the sea and to fly across the gulf between where it had been and where it would be. Suddenly, it was upon the two men shoving them into the benches with a wave of water --

Then gone --

Leaving behind a naked woman.

What the?

Rising, Jax was restrained by a firm hand on his shoulder. “Don’t go near her till she’s got her, uh, er, ship legs,” Angus said. “She’s a selkie. They can be a bit testy until the end of the transformation.”

“Transformation?”

“Yeah. Selkies are like seals, bigger. They turn into humans, don’t you know. Look.” Angus pointed to a seal fur heaped on the deck behind the last row of benches. “You’ll find that the magic suit has no discernible zipper.”

“Wha-what?”

“Don’t worry Yank. I know this selkie. She’s here for some money I owe her -- a car loan.”

Car loan? The American stared at the naked woman. He started to say something, opened his mouth, grunted softly; then closed his craw very slowly. Here for a car loan?

The selkie had an ageless handsome face with humor etched between the lines. She wasn’t exactly smiling but she wasn’t frowning either. Her legs were long and her breasts were small and pouty. She was as tall as Jax and Angus, maybe taller. Though she was sleek there was an aura of sturdiness and strength to her, and there was a keen intelligence in those lime green eyes --

“Let me do the talkin Yank. I’ve seen Clare clear a pub of longshoreman on a Saturday night for insultin a barmaid, or, ah, just for passin gas.”

“Angus Og the God of love,” the naked woman said with a little bite to love like the word had its female hands on its female hips in skepticism. “Long time no see.”

“Yes Clare,” Angus said peering at her. “I thought the rules were that you can only contact the same man every seven years unless he hides your skin” --

“Like you did for twelve long years -- and two in England with no fresh fish?”

“I miss you darlin.”

“Don’t start. That seven year thing is just superstitious nonsense -- this is the Twenty-First Century.”

On shore, Clare had been a computer science teacher when Angus had been a deep sea fisherman (as had his father and his father before him). “You’re a couple of years behind on the loan -- and don’t try and pay me in Irish pounds this time. I live in the ocean not on the moon.” Ireland along with more than twenty other countries had changed to the European Union currency, the Euro, since the Og’s separation. “I’ll take euros or dollars.”

Angus turned quickly to Jax, said in a stage whisper, though loud enough for his estranged wife to hear: “Y’know that statue in the harbor in Copenhagen? The Little Mermaid? Hans Christian Andersen got it wrong. It was a selkie.”

There was a softening in Clare’s eerily illuminated eyes, “She’s good.” The selkie sighed. “I saw her last week off the coast of Norway. Was very happy traveling with some friends. Said she might head to Maine for lobster and haddock. Maybe see a show at the Penobscot Theatre or the Ogunquit Playhouse.”

“Does she ask about Jimmy?”

“We’re selkies -- you shouldn’t have taken my skin Angus and kept me from the sea. It, it has cost us all. Of course she loves Jimmy but she’s a seafaring woman. You’re stuck at home with the child. Get over it.”

Angus snorted. “Jimmy’s aboard by-the-way.” The day was growing darker and the winds fiercer. Angus’s face mirrored that. “Just through the door, woman.”

Clare hesitated, took a deep breath: “I canna see him Angus. I must go.” She came close to him, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Send the money if you can, nobody buys seaweed in this part of the world.” She picked a piece of seaweed out of her wet hair, flicked it away, grabbed her seal skin, walked to the edge of the deck, donned the fur -- Jax couldn’t see any zippers -- and jumped over the side as woman to a seal.

Just like that --

And she never looked back.

Angus animatedly grumbled, though the storm blew his angry words this way and that; Jax understood only the one word: “Wwwoman.” The Irishman, like Captain Ahab, stood within the storm and searched the sea for his supernatural nemesis.

The Yank recovered, shook the immediate impact of the experience off -- he was from sane Atlanta after all. Still, it had been the first time he had ever witnessed a naked woman don a seal suit and jump into the raging Irish Sea. He sidled over to his new friend, put his hand on Angus’s shoulder and said, “She’s a hard one, man.”

“Aye. But she was a cyclone in bed.”

Jax laughed. “This is a fish story no one will ever believe back home.”

“Believe it son, thisis the Irish Sea.”

“Yeah. Yes.”

Joined in time and bond by this unique experience -- though this wasn’t yet known by either man until future times -- the sodden travelers rejoined the main cabin, wiser and tougher:

Jax passed by the table to get refreshments, a little chow for the three, a shot of American bourbon, and a short talk with the barmaid. Angus thanked the priest and shook hands. Afterwards, the middle-aged Irishman sat down with his grandson, drawn and with a wan smile. However, the grandfather and the grandson were laughing and gabbing by the time Jax got back to the table.

Sipping his coke, Angus said to the American in a faraway and apologetic voice, “It’s hard to keep seafarin women on land for long.”

“Yes,” Jax said, “Prob’ly so.” Within his mind he had a brief image of the naked woman on deck but he superimposed a barren desert mountain over this mental picture because Clare, after all, was another man’s wife. “She was, uh, unusual -- didn’t know about selkies.”

Angus blinked. “It’s the old Ireland, the old Scotland, the old Wales, the old ways.”

Jax nodded and squeezed a sympathetic but compressed smile out of his face. “There are great mysteries in the world,” said the man from Atlanta, now knowing more than ever that this was so.

Angus nodded in agreement, seemed to weigh some heavy thought, and said, “Great mysteries.” He grimaced, ground his teeth, and cut loose: “I lost my boat in the West of Ireland -- bank took it -- we ended up in the English midlands where we had a hard time getting fresh fish even though Britain is technically an island. I was working in a mannequin factory building car wives for Saudi Arabian women who disguise themselves as men -- wearing keffiyehs and false beards -- so that they can operate motor vehicles without being arrested when, uh, Clare found her seal skin. I hid it in a toolbox under a false bottom with my socket set on top -- I thought the socket set would fool her. She hid the seal fur in her classroom -- she was still teaching computer science at the time. She gave her notice. It all came out, the fact that I wouldn’t take a stand on seal clubbing in Greenland and Canada, my distaste for herring, some other things -- and she left.” He took a deep and mournful but re-generating breath.

“Darcy stayed with me, got married, until she got the calling too. She left Jimmy with her husband, Spencer. Spence went mad and is in an institution -- once you’ve been with a selkie, y’know.”

Jax commiserated, “I bet.” And, then with some steam: “I bet.”

Angus shrugged. “We’re a dysfunctional bunch, I guess -- I moved to Liverpool to work with an old friend -- bricklaying-- I was lucky to get the work. I enjoy it -- Jimmy, Peggy, and me, well, we’re a family.”

“You are,” Jax smiled. “You are -- Hey, I got a Celtic toast for you Angus. More-or-less. I saw it on a wall in an Irish pub in New Jersey.”

Angus smiled back at him. “Go to it Yank.”

So, there the three travelers sat, breathing in and out, within the ship within the storm upon the raging Irish Sea. The smiling man from Galway, the smiling man from Atlanta, and the smiling man from Liverpool raised and clunked their drinks together --

“Okay,” Jax recited. “He who loses job or money loses much; uh, he who loses friend or lover loses more; he who loses faith, hope and family loses all.”

Og blinked, nodded with a distant look searching a place only he could see… until he came back. “Aye Yank,” he said softly.

Jax smiled. “You’re a rich man Angus.”

“Yes Grandpa,” Jimmy said, “you’re a rich man.”

“Aye… Jimmy. Hey -- slainte.” The Irishman cracked a smile and raised his glass to the American who in turn did the same. “May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead, Yank.”

“Amen,” Jax said chuckling as an image suddenly waded into his mind: the selkie. He turned to the window and searched the raging Irish Sea, thinking of great mysteries; sipping his beer…

As for Jimmy, well, he just laughed joyously. He sure did love his grandpa. -end-

This is what P.J. Harnsmiessner told the Troll, more or less: “I was working on a formula for hydrogen fuel using roadkill as the basic ingredient. Suddenly, there was a deafening pounding like a stampede of giant hooves upon the roof. I went outside. I was, uh, stunned and flabbergasted by what I saw -- a miracle -- it was rainin beer bottles, more exactly Budweiser bottles without a can amongst the heavenly horde. I strayed too, um, far from the protection of the porch and got hit in the head with a beer. I fell wounded to my disreputable grass -- knocked unconscious but not before I received a life-alterin flash of insight. When I awoke, it was dark and the lawn was a treasure chest of fallen beer bottles -- “I got up, started collecting the full vessels of beer, remembered that I was still naked but that God had chosen to speak with me anyway; to show me a sign, or lots of signs. And, it was then that I drank my epiphany and I been doin it ever since -- “Cheers.” The Troll called P.J. the Neighborhood Drunk. P.J. called the Troll The Neighborhood Gossip, and with the speed of light she circulated P.J.’s riveting story throughout her network of ghoulish gossipers all over North Teakettle, all the way up to Dead Man’s Rock. It was about that time that all of the innocuous and regrettable -- though well-meant and sincere -- invitations P.J. had been getting since the First Iraq War, from The El Rancho Bingo Club, the New Ideas for Methane Club, various other self-diagnosed spinsters, male and female, and from the eclectic who needed their tattoo gear and at home spaying kits, etc., fixed, instantly dried up -- P.J. was elated. Fortunately, The Troll lived way at the other end of the street from P.J. where she cohabitated with her long-tortured desiccated husband and her little rat-like dog -- Yea brother: Willie the Neighborhood Dog was a little terror of an animal that was up and out with The Troll every morning at six a.m. to extricate excretions on other people’s lawns and to assist the Troll in vigorously patrolling The Neighborhood. In fact, if the New Ideas for Methane Club could have harnessed Willie they wouldn’t have needed anything from P.J., or even from the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. As a matter of pride, P.J. was the only one who never cleaned up after Willie, which accomplished two things: it kept The Neighborhood Kids from playing in his yard and chalked up another profound psychological victory for Mr. P.J. Harnsmiessner. If you’d ever met the Troll the first thing you might have thought was: Troll, then stash the kids, and hide the beer and all your fingers. She had a huge head on a little cherubic body and emanated a brooding evil with every blink of her sly, hooded and reddened eyes. To add insult to injury, she wore her hair in the cutest of pigtails with “petite” pink ribbons. She was, uh, quite unforgettable and frightening. P.J. ruminated that Stephen King might certainly have considered her an almost perfect work of fine art. The Troll told everyone it was Desert Storm that drove P.J. nuts. But, it wasn’t what some claimed was a good TV war that afflicted him with an erratic mental gait it was the jarring echoes of war in general that put the wrinkle in P.J.’s step: it was killing people and watching his two best friends die that sneaked up on him and pounded cymbals in his sleep. “See,” P.J. once told Mr. Troll, after he’d been drinking (just a little), “You pull the trigger and pop, a real person becomes a weighted dead thing that falls to earth as if all the invisible life strings have been instantly cut and there’s nothin left inside the meat bag on the ground, or at least none of the good stuff.” That’s what P.J. remembered the most. He didn’t really focus on the Chainsaw Massacre screaming so much or the mind-numbing tornado of noise but he couldn’t forget the bodies of his friends -- and enemies -- falling, falling, falling, or being blown to pieces in un-regimented and ragged cuts of human debris -- People, human beings, filled with life and dreams in one heartbeat, dead and empty the next. That’s what laser tattooed the inside of P.J.’s eyelids and made it tough to sleep sometimes, especially if it was raining epiphanies and all he had to do was to pop one open and suck it down. Naw, it wasn’t about a good TV war that got to P.J., not at all, so please don’t send him any hate mail or spray paint traitor on his old Dodge (it barely runs anymore as it is -- friggin carburetor), or gang stalk him. But, this story isn’t about The First Iraq War -- It’s about P.J.’s Neighborhood or as it used to be not too many years ago, and the impact that the early years of The Second War in Iraq had on everyone. The guy across the street from P.J. was designated The Universal North Teakettle Town Enemy, though certainly not P.J.’s enemy. (North Teakettle and South Teakettle both claim to be the birthplace of Hugo Teakettle that incredible inventor who gave us so much cool stuff: from the applause activated toilet, “Clap on, clap off, the Crapper,” to Roller Derby; unfortunately Hugo’s probably better remembered for his biggest debacle: wooden golf balls). Anyway, this is what happened: Just after The War started, Ralph -- which wasn’t an easy name to go through life with in the first place -- wrote a derogatory letter to a friend about The War, a hot button and very personal topic in these parts and in most parts of this great nation. At the time, some folks in North Teakettle were against the war and some were for it. What did P.J. think? Well, he felt that since he didn’t vote he didn’t technically count, but in truth he often thought about all the people, the human beings, the soldiers, the children, the fathers and the mothers, sisters and brothers involved in The War. In fact, P.J. thought about them A LOT. In a private letter Ralph made some kind of disparaging remark about the motive of the guys who went around calling the early anti-war moms and pops traitors. Ralph’s friend accidentally left the letter where his roommate -- whose cousin was a member of the American Super-patriotic Sportsmen and Homeric Opinionated Liberticidal Eviscerators for the war -- could snoop around and find it in a locked drawer. She made copies of this private correspondence and sent it to Headquarters in South Teakettle. The American Super-patriotic Sportsmen and Homeric Opinionated Liberticidal Eviscerators for the war, or A.S.S.H.O.L.E., did not then nor do they now represent either American patriots or sportsmen of any stripe. Rather they were and are a very busy group of anti-Constitutional bores and bullies, so we will refer to them herein, simply, as ASSHOLEs -- Which is what they are… The ASSHOLEs then e-mailed copies of Ralph’s letter all over the place with his picture and the license plate numbers on his little Geo. Within days other ASSHOLEs were honking and swerving their cars at Ralph, driving by his house and yelling nasty things, calling him on the phone and threatening him and his children because he had the nerve to have a private thought that they didn’t like, which while it made perfect sense to the ASSHOLEs made none whatsoever to P.J., due to the fact that he once had an epiphany when he was drunk and completely naked on his front lawn. The acting Chief of Police of North Teakettle was a real ASSHOLE (the real chief was a good man but he was doing two years in Nevada for some shenanigans with handcuffs and leg irons, uh, er, with some of the girls over at Moonlight Ranch in Carson City), so Ralph had no demonstrative or real protection; no real legal rights at all, none, nada, zip. So, Ralph was a sitting duck, and so was his family. A lot of folks in town knew that the ASSHOLEs were listening to Ralph’s phone calls from inside the local telephone exchange (also called the central office), and what he had to say about the harassment and the ASSHOLEs got him deeper into trouble. In fact, his family was even more viciously harassed for having the nerve to complain about the harassment of his family in the privacy of his own home and on his own phone. When the Troll told P.J. about what was going on he let Ralph know that one of those unregistered throwaway cell phones was a better idea for making his phone calls if he wanted to keep any of it secret, or, as P.J. politely suggested, maybe using certified mail with invisible ink was an even better idea (of course, not writing at all, not sharing his thoughts and beliefs ever, was the best and safest route to maintain his family’s theoretical Constitutional liberties with all those ASSHOLEs out there). Fortunately, no one knew P.J. had tipped Ralph off -- it was tough enough sleeping as it was -- P.J. was afraid if some ASSHOLE drove by his house and called him a Traitor at two a.m. he might have shot them, if he could have found his dad’s .45 in the nick of time and had any ammo left over from any of his earlier rampages. Ralph was forty-three years old and aging fast -- his three children walked around like zombies, they didn’t play in the front yard anymore, they cried a lot, and P.J. could hear their parents yelling at each other on hot summer nights. The Troll loved it. The ASSHOLEs loved it more. To some folks in The Neighborhood Ralph was an anti-ASSHOLE and deserved whatever he got. Bambo, Bambi’s brother, (Bambi Smith), lived next door to Ralph. He was a leading ASSHOLE, in fact he considered himself The Neighborhood’s Foremost Patriot. Heck, P.J. figured that Bambo would have joined the French Foreign Legion if he didn’t have to leave home to do it. He was half Rambo, half Daniel Boone, and half alligator. Bambo was always telling P.J. how sorry he was that he had missed Vietnam, which P.J. thought was completely whacko but was too polite to say so. Bambo had some kind of skin disease back in the day. If you had ever seen Bambo’s wife you’d understand immediately why she stayed with Bambo. But, she was a very, very nice lady, and she brought P.J. raspberry pies in the summer which was okay with Bambo because he’d been in a war, even if he hadn’t reacted to his short war as Bambo would have reacted to his long war if he’d not been afflicted by a terrible skin rash and so couldn’t go and watch his friends die, and kill people he didn’t know. Cheers. P.J. once suggested to Bambo that Bambo should read a book about Vietnam by the famous Admiral, Admiral Zumwalt, now retired, and then maybe he, Bambo, wouldn’t have felt like he missed anything by “not having been killed or maimed in Vietnam.” Bambo studied P.J. suspiciously for any trace of sarcasm but P.J. was a poker player from way back and escaped detection. Now, there was a smart guy -- Admiral Zumwalt. The admiral had been made to worry by some rabble-rousers at the time that the traditional thirteen buttons on the old Navy dress bellbottoms were problematic. It was rumored by these detractors (probably Army disinformation) that some sailors, when slightly intoxicated, had a -- well -- a hard time undoing all the buttons so as to adequately and safely urinate and sometimes had, uh, accidents. So, to modernize the Navy in the 70s, Admiral Zumwalt suggested dressing all the enlisted swabbies (sailors) in khaki uniforms with zippers, just like the Chiefs wore. Of course, after this change was attempted it became apparent that with this convenience a much more serious problem developed and “unwanted pregnancies” skyrocketed from Hong Kong to Kansas. And, this is why Admiral Zumwalt was so smart: he decided to leave things alone. He had the Navy change everything back to the way it had been with the thirteen buttons and the traditional uniform, which is why half the guys joined up anyway (the white cap and the bellbottoms having been rumored from way back to be chick magnets), and everything worked out, pretty much. Quite often, it really does take real genius to understand a simple truth: sometimes it really is better just to leave things the frig alone. Unfortunately, no one in the Neighborhood had that kind of genius… Anyway, Bambo hated Ralph and The Troll hated them both. P.J. didn’t hate anybody any more, but like he always said, he was glad the Troll lived at the other end of the street -- too bad Bambo didn’t too. Ruby lived next door to P.J. Her husband died of lung cancer. She chopped her own wood, mowed her own lawn -- which was much nicer than P.J.’s own raggedy plot -- and dug out her own driveway every winter no matter how deep the snow. She was at least sixty-five years old though P.J. never asked her exactly how old she was. Her husband fought in Korea, and it wasn’t as good for him as Vietnam had been for Bambo -- Ruby told P.J. so. Ruby’s husband had funny green toenails from the frostbite he got when he went to the war that he didn’t like. But, he was very proud of his service and religiously remembered his friends who had died in Korea. He used to hang The Stars and Stripes out every Memorial Day and just about whenever else he felt like it, and made trips to the cemetery to visit the dead, a tradition Ruby kept alive and encouraged P.J. to keep with a vigorously arched left eyebrow, even when he was drunk and depressed. Bambo flew his flag 24-7, which was fine with P.J., after all Bambo lived in America and the First Amendment was inviolate, or until the ASSHOLEs took over completely. Still, P.J. always meant to tell Bambo that you weren’t really supposed to fly a flag at night or in the rain, or the snow, etc., but what was the point (he was an ASSHOLE). He’d probably have cut off P.J.’s raspberry pie supply and bugged his house (just like he did Ralph’s). Hells bells P.J. didn’t want people listening to him talk to himself in the privacy of his own home, especially at night when he couldn’t sleep -- hell -- eavesdroppers might have deduced that he was crazy. Of course his story about the raining beer bottles and, maybe, that one time he was up on his roof, naked, well not completely naked, he was wearing high top sneakers, blaring bagpipe music from his stereo, and singing marching songs, wouldn’t go in his favor if anyone tried to lock him up in a padded room without a TV (he needed his Wheel of Fortune fix -- Vanna, Vanna baby).YEAH, he didn’t want anyone bugging his house -- man, there should really have been a law against it and P.J. thought that, just maybe, there once was, a very long time ago, probably before Thomas Edison screwed things up and invented electricity.P.J.’s other next-door neighbor was gay. In The Neighborhood being gay fell into the Don’t ask, don’t tell arena because of the ASSHOLEs. As long as you didn’t actually confirm the fact that you weren’t quite right about your sexual orientation as deciphered by the ASSHOLEs you could probably have gotten by as long as you didn’t cross Bambo, too. Besides, Andy was a NASCAR fan, made his own venison jerky, was a tough looking guy, and was one of the best lawn bowling players in the area. In fact, there were plenty of folks in The Neighborhood who thought that P.J. was gay (which is how anyone a bit odd in The Neighborhood was labeled by some ASSHOLEs). Though, actually, P.J. loved women quite a lot, it was just that he loved beer and Jack Daniels more. P.J. didn’t want Andy to tell him about his being gay but he did anyway -- though P.J. suspected as much since he was much too trim for a man of thirty in North Teakettle, and maybe South Teakettle too, though they did have those organized and frenetic lawn bowling leagues down there. After Andy burdened P.J. with the truth, P.J. said, “Look, you’re a good man. I don’t care if you’re gay. What you do is your business -- hey, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. But, please don’t ever, uh, tell me about what you guys do together. I don’t know how women can stand havin sex with men let alone men having sex with men.” P.J. thought he hurt Andy’s feelings but it wasn’t about Andy being gay, P.J. truly didn’t have a problem with that, not a bit, it was, well -- P.J. had an old boxelder tree between his house and Andy’s. It looked a little like a maple, gnarly, full-limbed, thick with vibrant green leaves in the summer. This great tree was an even greater medium for good neighbor enhancement. P.J. couldn’t see what Andy did with other men and Andy couldn’t see what P.J. did alone. That’s called: Democracy. Cheers. Anyway, being a gay NASCAR fan gave Andy a different perspective than many folks around North Teakettle. Helping her husband commit suicide after fighting lung cancer for three years gave Ruby a different perspective, too. So, it was only natural, especially since they both loved NASCAR and English-blended tea and the Days of Our Lives that they became close friends. Personally, P.J. preferred the Young and the Restless and Roller Derby and Irish coffee but their differing viewpoints were guaranteed equally by the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, thank God; or at least -- once again -- until the ASSHOLEs took over completely. Eventually, Andy and Ruby came over to P.J.’s house to let him in on their joint perspective about Bambo and the ASSHOLE’s harassment of Ralph and his family. It was about ten in the morning, P.J. was half drunk, unshaven, bleary-eyed, and wearing his old Marine Corps boxing robe, which really wasn’t his, but the guy who originally owned it was dead and it helped P.J. to remember him when wearing the robe drunk (or halfway there) -- and that’s not a gay thing either. The previous owner of the robe saved P.J.’s life so that he could come home without him. Gunnery Sergeant Benny Gomez had three children. P.J. had none. It didn’t make any sense. P.J. lived: Benny died. But, see that’s the secret of war, it doesn’t make any sense. I guess Gunny is one of the reasons P.J. had his epiphany. His children were three more reasons. With a terrible clatter P.J. cleared the debris from his kitchen table with a sweep of his sole remaining arm, and Ruby and Andy sat down. Neither wanted a drink so P.J. made coffee. Maxwell House, good to the last drop. P.J. put some Jack Daniels in his. Yummy. “Thank god you don’t smoke,” Rudy said sarcastically, arching that abominable eyebrow. Andy chuckled. “Don’t start Ruby,” P.J. said. “Hey anybody want any Lucky Charms?” Nobody did. “We don’t like what people been doin to Ralph and his family. It’s been goin on long enough,” Ruby said, not fooling around. “Five years doesn’t seem like a long time,” P.J. said. “Hmmmph.” Ruby glowered and pointed that eyebrow at P.J. again. “It’s not funny. The police won’t do anything. It’s got to stop.” “Yeah,” Andy said. “The kids are old enough now to notice the Honkers and the Swervers and the Laughing Hyenas.” Those were the nicknames some in The Neighborhood had for the ASSHOLEs, which weren’t all members of A.S.S.H.O.L.E., in fact some of the creeps seemed like regular folks, though they all had two arms, two eyes, two ears, and P.J. didn’t anymore. “It scares little Beth and she’s only five,” Andy continued. “She comes outside now like Bambi the deer not, er-uh, like Bambi Smith, with big ol’ scared eyes.” Andy was a sensitive fellah so he might have been a little over-in-touch with such things, and that’s not a gay thing either -- There was a gunshot across the street. Andy was from down in Oakland, Ruby was a hunter, and P.J. was an ex-grunt so they knew it wasn’t back-fire; more than that, they all knew immediately it was the bark of a mid-caliber handgun. They all knew, too, that it was either Bambo or Ralph who fired the round. And, they all knew why. But, just as many folks frequently are in this old world they were pretty much wrong all the way around. Anyway -- On their frenzied way out of the front door they heard screaming and curses, and bleats of grief from across the way. P.J. figured that Ralph had finally lost it and either killed Bambo or himself, but thankfully P.J. was wrong, actually Bambo, long suffering for having missed the Vietnam War, had finally snapped and killed The Troll’s Little Willie, which had been loose and pooping vociferously on Bambo’s award winning rhubarb patch. There are reasons why you can shoot a dog in North Teakettle but not -- though P.J. was no lawyer -- for pooping on rhubarb. But, The Troll knew that Bambo’s brother was the acting town police chief -- the ASSHOLE -- which led directly to this:Ralph’s and Bambo’s kids were all crying, so was Mrs. Bambo and Mrs. Ralph, Bambo was hollering, so was Ruby, so was Andy. They were all standing under a giant elm in front of Bambo’s split-level ranch with white vinyl siding: it was an apt Franz Kafka-Looney Tunes impression of a Norman Rockwell Saturday summer morning when a small dog is murdered -- Picture perfect. Bambo unwisely separated himself from the crowd. He had scooped up the little dog in a shovel and carried it out to the street where he dumped it. If Bambo had actually been to Vietnam or East Los Angeles, or had ever watched the Animal Planet, he might have re-considered what he was doing. And, what was that? He was making himself an easy target, separating himself from the herd. From a block away, with an old bolt-action 30-06 The Troll shot Bambo in the head right in front of his family, and so the rest of them, too, in the now Stephen King-Norman Rockwell impressionist painting. Bambo was alive one moment then his strings were cut and he dropped instantly to the asphalt, deader than a doornail. The Great Patriot and ASSHOLE was empty of all vibrant pizzazz just like the wretched little dog: blood, and bones, and meat. He was never to complain about missing the Vietnam War again. They were all shocked and stunned, even Ralph. It was awful. But, the Troll cackled happily, quite contented with her revenge. She then miserably collected her little dog and went home to wait for the police. P.J. kept the hunting rifle, just in case. Nice long gun, well kempt. P.J. mused later on, as he was wont to do after a six-pack and for years afterwards, that Bambo, one of the greatest self-proclaimed patriots on earth would probably be mourned lavishly as a Homeric Utterly Sweet Hero (HUSH) by the ASSHOLEs. But, after the dust settled and with some other folks, unmoved sentiment and commerce would grind starkly on, and Bambo would be made into alligator high heels, wallets, dog collars, and maybe even a brief case by some capitalistic realists unmoved by visions of Valhalla. Back to reality: With Bambo dead and The Troll in prison -- with the little pooping dog gone too -- everything immediately got a little better for Ralph’s family, and, truthfully, for all the rest of the folks in The Neighborhood, too, including Mr. Troll; though, not of course for Bambo’s family. Bambo’s son, Nietzche, flew the flag at half-mast for a long time -- even at night, even in the rain -- P.J. never had the heart to tell him that it wasn’t good flag etiquette to do so. But what the hell: let’s all pop open an epiphany -- Cheers. -end-

Author’s Note: Some years later, after unsuccessfully trying to pitch his tent in a tough neighborhood in New Jersey, Gadhafy, Khaddafy, Qadify, uh, Mu Mu, appeared at the U.N. with what appeared to be a rubber nose (C.I.A. studies claimed that the Colonel was in the advanced throes of Syphilitic Dementia and his real nose had decomposed). While Mu Mu ranted and raved on the speaker’s podium with P.J. watching on TV, P.J. became fearful that His Excellency’s rubber nose would fall off and bounce all over the General Assembly like a Super Ball -- Suddenly, P.J. was dumbstruck: Mu Mu reminded him of someone. Who? Who?! YES: Bambo -- Bambi’s brother. Upon further musings P.J. concluded that while Mu Mu had probably earned his venereal disease from a real sheep, Bambo -- immaculate in his purity -- most likely got his from a toilet seat, though sadly the end result was the same in both despots -- absolute lunacy. So: Even though everything finally appeared to make perfect sense to P.J., he never shared his discoveries with Nietzche. He was too much of a gentleman, a nice guy, a good neighbor, and an all-around excellent man.

Most of the card players were men and not young -- Many were brown -- Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, Guatemalans -- with a handful of whites intermittently mixed amongst the packed house, though most of the gamblers were black. The Poodle was waiting for Charlie at a gouged-up cocktail table in a backroom the size of a two-car garage. He was older, stooped, successful. He wore no jewelry, simple clothes. His hairstyle was the same as it always had been, a brush-backed bouffant. There was someone sitting next to him. From the back the guy was built like Charlie, lean, muscular, wide shoulders. He was a bald-headed black man. He wore baggy, dark clothes. Cowboy and Charlie were the only white faces in the Frederick Douglass Room. Years earlier, being a lone white man at Poodle's wouldn't have generated much thought, but it was ’93 and after living a few years in places where black faces were as rare as parking spots in San Francisco, he felt out-of-place -- a robed Jesuit at a Baptist tent revival -- but even as he considered this eerie hypothesis he began to feel at home. The room was dimly lit, full, busy. Sam Cooke labored loudly over a scratchy sound system. Charlie motivated by a lifetime of the semi-pursuit of survival searched the room for threat, real or imagined, but no one seemed to care much that he was there. Cowboy strode rigidly behind Charlie. Though the big man was used to being a singular sight, he was stiff, uncomfortable with the attention it brought him. And, it brought him a lot of attention. He was a noticeable man at Poodle's. Folks stared. No way around it -- But it wasn’t that bad. The Poodle Man flashed a warm, neon grin. In a world where a smile can be cheaply affected or just a cynical tip-off to malicious intent, a free, clean smile was something Charlie always appreciated, and smiles didn’t get much cleaner than the Poodle’s. Poodle got up and the two men hugged -- Charlie self-consciously, Poodle warmly. The second guy stood and stuck out his hand. Charlie shook it in the orthodox manner, and murmured, "Hey, Henry. Surprised to see you in a cocktail bar." He instantly regretted what might seem like a dig to the Black Muslim. But, the black man said: "Drinkin water." Charlie looked at Cowboy. "Cowboy this is Qawi-Bey and Poodle. This is Cowboy, uh, Stanford, a real good friend to Danny” -- “Cowboy’s good,” Cowboy said, tickling the lower octaves of sound by soulful objection. “Uh, Cowboy, Henry was in the Army too.” “No shit. Great.” “I was an Admiral,” Qawi-Bey chuckled. Cowboy laughed. “Yeah right.” The men sat down. Poodle ordered beers. Qawi-Bey was dark-skinned, handsome enough to run for mayor, agile even in the non-act of sitting. He said to Charlie, "Surprised to see you here, too. There's still some brothers round here might cap your ass -- if they can catch you.” He smiled.Charlie smiled back, kind of. "Well, uh, huh? I guess -- though, hey, I doubt after all this time, with Theotis dead, who cares?" Qawi-Bey shook his head reproachfully. "Those brothers you robbed, even ten years later, you never know. Theotis son bout twenty. Crazy. A Crip. Jabby Cat is still around, too. Nobody forgets nothin around here." “I live with a Mexican woman in a trailer in the Rocky Mountains. Pay back’s a bitch. So we’re covered.” “Shit,” Qawi-Bey laughed. Cowboy hoisted up a perfunctory grunt; he lived in a stick-built house. “Same old Charlie,” Poodle grinned. Cowboy looked around the room suspiciously but with his stone face limbering up. Nobody wanted to get shot because El Wacko had robbed some crack dealers or whatever the hell else he did back when he was nuts and bouncing off of the walls. "It's cool,” Poodle said. “Charlie's a tourist from the Rocky Mountains." "A real poor tourist," Qawi-Bey added, taking a sip of water, and smiling. "With those raggedy clothes it don’t look he like he’s got much anybody wants." "A poor tourist with Mad Cow Disease," Charlie cracked a slight grin. Poodle chuckled. Stanford and Henry looked at each other appraisingly -- suddenly, neither smiling -- playing the Interracial Man Game. "Hey Henry," Charlie asked, getting to the point, "Poodle says you heard somethin, huh?" Qawi-Bey flinched, a quick twitch of discomfort. Something was bothering him. "Yeah. Yeah I did. The day the po-lice found Danny's truck he checked himself into that drug rehab place. That Salvation Army, uh, place on Front Street.” He took a deep breath. “Close to Old Sac. A brother I.D.ed the picture you gave Poodle. Danny signed in as D. Smith. Didn't stay long. Went over the back fence. Nobody could say why. He was actin crazy. They thought he was hallucinatin. Does that sound right to you?" Wearily, Charlie nodded. "Maybe." "I bought a pair of cowboy boots he mighta lef behind. Poodle's got em in the back room. Would you know em?" Charlie nodded again. "Yeah. I'd know em." "How's it look so far, Charlie?" Poodle asked, somberly. "Well," Charlie scratched his thickening beard, "Seems he owes some money. Maybe big money. He was chased down to where he left his truck. Car chase. A couple of Nazis. Don’t know if it was the A.B. or, uh, maybe their cousins got involved. I got that first hand but, uh, it’s not clear who exactly was after him." Charlie glanced around the room, smiled watching some of the old guys play lo-ball. "It was a dead-end street in some yuppie neighborhood by the river. I guess some kids were out playin in the yard. Danny left a handgun in the truck -- you know him, he wouldn't've wanted anybody to get hurt -- and took off over a fence. Maybe he was all cranked up. I dunno. He was pretty bad off. Cowboy can tell you. Cuttin spy holes in the drapes. Strapped all the time. Hidin out. Never let anybody in the house. Bad." "Sorry to hear that," Poodle said slowly. He made a sorrowful sound in his throat and shook his head. "If there was ever a boy with a good heart it was Danny." Charlie nodded gratefully. "Owin someone,” Cowboy said gruffly. “I don't believe it. I known Danny since we was ten, he never borrowed or owed anybody a fuckin thing. Never like in never. And another thing. Runnin away from a fight. Bullshit. Danny? Bullshit. I don't believe it." Qawi-Bey met Cowboy's eyes. The Army vets stared at each other. Cowboy sipped a Coors. Qawi-Bey sipped a Sacramento Tap Water. Poodle shrugged. "There were kids there, Cowboy. Think about it. Danny's not goin to do somethin if some kid might get hurt. No way. No chance. The owin money part is jus what I heard." "Don't make it true" -- "Then what?" Qawi-Bey asked. "Somehow he got a cab downtown. Now, maybe, I know where he went. He tol a friend that he was thinkin of goin into drug rehab. He got out of the cab in Old Sac. Makes sense” -- “Maybe,” Cowboy said. “That was the last time anybody saw him," Charlie added sadly. "I gotta find him." "Me too," said Cowboy. Qawi-Bey tapped the table with his knuckles. "I'll keep lookin." He hesitated. Something was bothering him. "Listen, man. Charlie. My name's Qawi-Bey, not Henry. Awright?" "Awright," Charlie said. He smiled. "Sorry Qawi-Bey." Qawi-Bey smiled, nodded, and asked, "What name you usin these days Charlie." Charlie laughed. "Not the one I had when I was here before, Mr. Bey. No way. I’m not that dumb." Poodle smiled and sipped his scotch. “In the Rockies,” Charlie said, smiling, “I’m known as Captain Normal, the Man with the Trailer on the Edge of the Cliff with the Crazy Mexican Woman from Rhode Island. Uh, I whittle toothpicks with a salad fork for a livin. Sell a ton of them to tourists from Texas who use them to prop their eyes open when they’re driving through Texas.” Poodle chuckled. Qawi Bey smiled. Cowboy stared into space, but said jovially, “Shit.”

It was raining hard, just about freezing. Danny and Henry found Charlie in a ditch on the opposite side of the river just off the Garden Highway. Danny got the information out of Frankie Fat Boy with the hint of a little violence from a Louisville Slugger. Charlie was covered in blood, looked bad, his face was trashed, and he was fading in and out of consciousness. They took him to Sutter Memorial. Danny told the emergency crew that Charlie had been in a car crash. He gave the staff a phony name for his brother, and said he'd cover the bill with cash, which he did. The bikers trashed Charlie's knee, he needed surgery; he had two broken ribs, a cracked cheekbone, and his nose was smashed. They'd dumped him in the rising water and slimy mud of a ditch. They told him to crawl home like, "The nigger lovin punk," he was.Charlie kept saying to his torturers, "Fuck you," for as long as he could, and kept getting the shit beaten out of him for his bravado. But, he stopped talking when the little biker with the beard told him, "If you talk to the pigs, man, you're dead. We'll go after your brother, too." Charlie was no rat, he wouldn’t tell the cops shit, but it was the second part that gave him reason to think and be afraid. Danny didn't need any more trouble.After the three bikers drove off in an old Monte Carlo, Charlie tried to get up and out of the ditch but he passed out. Maybe he would have died if Danny and Henry hadn't found him. He had a concussion. It was cold out. The irrigation ditch was filling fast. It didn’t take much to drown when you were asleep face first in a few inches of water. When he could talk, Henry’s sister, Henrietta, came to see him. She gently kissed him on the forehead. Charlie smiled. Man, she was beautiful. Henry rocked on the balls of his feet. Even after what happened, he wasn’t comfortable with what was going on between his sister and the white boy."I'm so sorry, Charlie," Henrietta said. Her eyes were strained and puffy. She snuffled with one hand and gently held Charlie's with the other. "Wasn't your fault," Charlie said. His face was a twisted, swollen, yellow, black, and blue mask. He etched out a crooked smile with a chisel, mallet, and another mallet. She nodded. "You can go wherever you want, Henrietta,” Henry said. “This is America. Course, some places are better than others." He smiled. Henrietta smiled back. “Yeah,” Danny said, “And don’t listen to Charlie about which places are better than others because he doesn’t have a-a clue.” "I'll never forget what you did for my sister, Charlie,” Henry said tightly. “They mighta, uh, hurt her. Hurt her bad." Charlie looked at Henry, grateful, nodded, and replied, “Thanks for pulling me out of the water.”

Charlie looked at Qawi-Bey, smiled and asked, "How's your sister doin?" "She's happy, man. Real happy." "Good. She deserves to be." Qawi-Bey smiled. “She does -- got a boyfriend too.” Poodle smiled and sipped his scotch. “She’s married, finished college. Teaches over at Grant High School.” “Wow man,” Charlie said. “I knew she’d make it. A teacher. Man.” He had known that she had made it, had a good life. Cowboy rubbed his neck and cracked his knuckles. "We'd better get movin, dontcha think?" he said to Charlie. But, Charlie was staring off into space, again.

When everyone was gone, even though the other bed in the room was unoccupied, Danny pulled the privacy curtain closed tight around them. He asked, not unpleasantly, "When you gonna get tired of bein a hero?" "I wasn't tryin to be a hero. I, uh, was just, I dunno, I guess” -- "Just bein yourself," Danny smiled. "Yeah, I know." "I hope this isn't gonna cause you any trouble." "Sure it is," Danny said. He worked up a grim twist of lips trying for a smile but only managed to create the impression that he was dead. "But that's okay, I’m used to it." That stung Charlie. “Just kiddin.” Danny smiled. He was in jeans and a jean jacket. He had a short beard. He looked heavier than usual. He looked tired, too. He'd been working hard up north. Danny rubbed his top lip with a forefinger in thought, a trait he'd inherited from a foster father. "What the fuck, huh?" "That's why I don't come around much Danny. I don't wanna get you dismembered." Danny chuckled sourly. He said, lowering his voice, "What are you gonna tell the cops if they show up? No one believes you were in a car wreck." "Nothin. It's none of their business." "Just checkin. You don't wanna make things worse. We both might get out of this without more trouble. Maybe." Charlie nodded. Danny ran a tired hand through his collar-length brown hair. "You should prob’ly get out of town when you're better. I'll put you on a plane." Charlie grinned. "Ah, I don't know about that. I kinda want to get even first." "If you do,” Danny snapped, “when you're gone, they'll come after me. I'll never get anywhere if I keep gettin pulled back into this kind of shit. You started it. You shouldn’t been at the Steelhead with a black girl. You know better than that. That’s why I’m not goin after them.” He hesitated: “You weren’t wrong just dumb. Leave it alone.” “Shit.” Charlie started to say something else, hesitated; then said, "You're right. I'll go."

Charlie took Danny’s boots when they left the card parlor. Outside in the tennis court-sized parking lot three young guys were standing near a lowrider, an old Ford, which was parked a couple slots away from Cowboy's caddy by the street. There was a single halogen light by Poodle's back door and though the half-filled lot wasn't lighted the glimmer of massive city candlepower reflected shrilly from the tightly knit clouds that played the emasculated night like a full moon over the desert, illuminating the lot in a pale nuclear glow. Someone by the Ford said, "Hey, you gotta light?" "Don't smoke,” Cowboy answered. There was a derisive chorus of snorts as Cowboy unlocked the caddy. Someone laughed loudly. "Why you lock that thing man?” a voice asked. “No one's gonna steal some shit box like that." As Charlie was getting into the car, he said, "That's why I leave my platypus in the trunk. I know it's safe." "Fuck you man,” someone said. And someone else said, "Fuck your planet pussy too." “Don’t let my planet pussy hear you say that,” Charlie said without any heat, “she’s a Mexican woman from Providence.” Cowboy turned the engine over. As he started to exit the parking lot, he rolled down his window and said, just loud enough, "Fuck you niggers, get a job." There was an answering clamor of angry insults -- “no dick white boys, bitches, motherfucking punks” -- and catastrophic threats that probably had some validity. Qawi-Bey was standing just outside of the card room door watching the commotion. “Shit,” Charlie growled at Cowboy, "Did you have to say that? I got friends in that place. You could have said anything but that.” Cowboy shook his head in frustration. "Fuck Charlie. You gotta be kiddin me. Save that shit for someone else. Those rugheads were fuckin with us." Cowboy slammed his hands on the steering wheel, suddenly angry, tired of Charlie’s bullshit. “Fuck you Charlie.” “Fuck.” Charlie took a deep breath, rubbed his beard, and said, "Goddamnit. Fuck you too Cowboy." He half-turned to check for pursuit. There was none. Man, it was the same ol’ same ol’. In the mountains he went to town only when he had to and even then it was different in Boulder. He could do his own time. They drove a dozen blocks in a hard silence, but before they got to the freeway ramp, Charlie ordered, "Hey, stop at the nearest payphone. Over there. I'm gonna call Poodle and Henry, tell em we're sorry." “You’re kiddin?” “No.” "Well, shit, speak for yourself Charlie. Why the fuck would I be sorry?" “Ah, I dunno. You insulted someone who bought you a beer? You insulted a whole race of people that didn’t do nuthin to you.” Cowboy ran his huge hand over his face. “What the fuck do I care? Besides they couldn’t hear us inside the card parlor anyway.” “Just stop at a pay phone.” “Charlie you’re fuckin crazy.” -end-​

“It’s a pissin.” “What’s a pissin?” “The bird. The parrot, it’s a pissin.” The big Yank turned, craned his neck and looked at the green parrot. The exotic bird, about the size of a crow, was standing at attention suspended above the floor on a wooden roost. It chirruped. The big Yank grunted and swiveled back around to look at the other Yank. “Pissin? The bird’s not pissin,” he mumbled. “He’s stone cold dry.” “You don’t see the pissin?” the other Yank asked. “No, I don’t see no goddamn pissin.” A rangy Aussie, with only a smattering of poker chips and American bills in front of him, chuckled, but he stifled his mirth with neutral eyes after getting hit with a Swiss banker’s glower from the big Yank. The other Yank smiled widely. “Really,” he said. “Hmmm? Wow. I guess besides bein a cheat you’re blind too.” The big Yank jumped up and slammed down the steel chair behind him. He raised his fists. “No one calls me a cheat.” The Aussie rose, too, reluctantly, slowly, as if to say, what kind of bullshit is this then? The fourth man in the game, a cherubic little Malay, spun off his chair, pushed back from the table and wielding common sense in a nonsensical world sought refuge by the fire door, near a mounted crocodile head, which leered at the living with dead marble eyes. The Malay warned the big Yank, “Caldwell is a witts. Don’t do it Yank. No kidding. Caldwell is a witts” -- The Electus flew with its talons raised at the back of the big Yank’s fuzzy blonde scalp, which offered a sizable target underneath a cap more often seen upon the heads of sports-car drivers in Italy than in a New Guinea bar. “What the hell,” the big Yank croaked -- Instead of attacking, the huge parrot snatched the man’s hat. In the same breath the other Yank moved off to the big Yank’s side and launched a sweep-kick from behind the man’s knees, knocking the bigger man into the table and sending the cards, ashtrays, and beer bottles flying, bouncing and banging around the room. Then: they all watched the crazy bird -- Wordlessly, the Aussie waved his hands over his head to ward off any more dive-bombing parrots. He backed away from the altercation seeking any refuge or safety near the bar. From behind that long bar, Ralph the Norwegian yelled, “Caldwell. Caldwell. Enough! No credit if you start somethin.” The Malay suddenly howled with laughter. “No credit Caldwell.” Dropping his prize, the cap, on the dirty checkered linoleum floor, the parrot returned to its roost by the window, where it cackled excitedly, preening and cocking its head. There was a moment of silence. The big Yank stood in the middle of the room finding each man’s eyes lingering on Caldwell’s. The big man was red-faced, strangling with rage in his tropical shirt and white pants. “Ralph,” Caldwell said, “if you didn’t let cheats in the game, I’d have enough money to pay you and you wouldn’t have to give me any goddamn credit.” The tall, sandy-haired Caldwell nodded pleasantly at the big Yank and walked slowly over to the bar. He smiled mischievously at Ralph. “I’ll take a Foster’s on credit, uh, my good man.” The big Yank looked at the Electus. The bird abruptly shrieked and spread its wide and formidable wings. Alarmed, the guy did a Fatty Arbuckle impression and staggered backwards until he crossed his pride threshold, jettisoned the emotion, pirouetted into a near Red Foxx persona. The Malay laughed again. The big Yank yelled something, gibberish mostly, stomped out of the club, slamming the heavy, burglarproof door shut, and disappeared into the New Guinea night. The parrot chirruped, seemingly happy or successful. Chuckling, the Aussie and the Malay joined the Yank at the bar. “Did you really have to knock him down? That wasn’t smart. You know he works at the U.S. embassy don’t you?” Ralph said to Caldwell. “Big-wig. I hope you don’t lose your passport and need him to get you another one.” “Too late -- screw him,” Caldwell said grumpily, “he’s just another asshole. A friggin yes man -- whatever Rio Tinto wants at the Panguna.” The Australian looked at Caldwell and smiled with humor crinkling the skin at the edges of his eyes. Caldwell smiled, too. What came out of his mouth didn’t always match his intent which caused him no small consternation over the years, not to mention trouble. He changed course: “I go to Darwin any time I can. A very hospitable town -- beautiful. I like Australia.” The Aussie nodded: “I’ve been to the States several times. I feel the same about America.” Both men smiled. The club was long empty except for the four, tired, unshaven, smelly, half-drunk men and, of course, the bird. It was another typical three a.m. on another Friday morning in Port Moresby. Ralph’s Place was a lengthy bar facing eight circular tables all huddled under a tin roof that had been patched up more times than any theoretical marriage between Tanya Harding, and Madonna, and Ann Coulter, and Hillary Clinton to Prince Faisal could have ever been. The walls were screech-white within the outer cocoon of sagging Victorian architecture, cheap when originally built, but suddenly touristy as more tourists began to find New Guinea after the Bougainville War supposedly ended a handful of years earlier in 1998. Ralph’s Place was within sight of the Holiday Inn where visitors could stay the night in fine American splendor for around one hundred and fifty dollars -- American -- and not too far from the Flag Gateway Hotel where Caldwell and the bird could afford to spend the night for less than seventy -- Australian dollars -- when he had it. The old bar was ornate, with dental scrolls and real teak inlay, chipped and dented and personable. The stools were rattan. Ralph was old and fat with cheerful eyes, besotted by red-splotched skin-cancer scars that lurked like leprosy over his doughy face and tubular nose. He had perfect teeth, though: the pearly whites were custom made across the water in Australia. When he smiled he could match a new cue ball for pure brilliance. The Aussie was a tanned, ropey, cowboy type of man with big hands and tough eyes, which he kept on a tight leash. While playing cards, Caldwell had noticed, too, that the man’s hands were smooth without callous, maybe an office worker, or a school teacher, or a policeman, but someone who spent a lot of time outdoors nonetheless. It was January, the rainy season -- much needed after years of drought -- and the Aussie was dressed like the other men in boat runners, shorts, bush shirt but carried a poncho instead of an umbrella. He ordered a Foster’s Lager for Caldwell and himself and the Malay. He pushed some Papuan Kinas across the bar top to pay. The rain erupted, pounding in a strafing run on the tin roof. Caldwell flinched. He didn’t like the calamitous racket. It was like being inside of a giant beer can under the crashing drone of someplace like Niagara Falls, a place he’d visited as a kid, or Victoria Falls, a place he’d visited as a man -- though it didn’t strain anyone’s imagination to hear artillery fire in that jarring noise, too. If the Papuans hadn’t suffered so much in the drought, Caldwell would have said, bah humbug, screw the rain. The conflagration was brutal. Surprising himself, he suddenly felt a real need for the snow, and the cold, and the winter silence of the north woods of his childhood. Hell, he hadn’t longed for a Maine winter in years. Maybe it was time to leave the tropics, time to leave New Guinea -- he could feel it in his bones. But, could he leave? Could he really? And, what would he do if he went home, open his own Foster’s dealership? Sell pencils to drivers at stoplights? Rent out half of a cardboard box to a roommate? He’d need money if he wanted to go back to the States. Real money. He should have done his twenty in the Marine Corps or at least learned how to type -- Semper Fi. In order to compete with the pounding of the deluge all hands had to raise their voices. So, the Aussie was nearly yelling when he said, “Bejesus, but you got that bird trained. What was all that nonsense about pissin?” The Malay laughed. Caldwell studied the Aussie, wondering how long the man had been in Papua New Guinea. “Pigeon English,” Ralph answered, smiling. “Tok Pissin is the local dialect. Pissin means pigeon.” “But that’s a parrot,” the Aussie smiled uncertainly, pointing with his long nose at the big colorful bird that was now motionless but eyeing the men with what appeared to be intelligent skepticism. Caldwell nodded. “Pissin means pigeon. Pigeon’s can fly. Parrots do to. So a parrot is a pissin too.” He shrugged. “It makes as much sense as reopening the Panguna Copper Mine.” The Aussie chuckled. The Malay looked blank. Ralph shook his head slightly. Caldwell smiled, and sucked down a big gulp of Australian beer. “The bird isn’t trained,” the Malay said. “Not truly. Not the way you think.” The Aussie leaned back to look past Caldwell so he could clearly see the Malay’s happy face. The Malay, Harry Lu, smiled. “Sure,” he said. “Caldwell is a witts. A -- you know -- witch. He calls to the pissin with a magic voice. But, it’s not just a parrot, it’s a special bird: it’s an Electus. From the islands. They Pissin Tok. Caldwell and the parrot do. Up here.” Harry tapped his forehead. “Caldwell is a witch.” Ralph chuckled. “Don’t believe all that nonsense. A witch? How come he loses in cards so much, then.” Caldwell laughed. “Yeah, how come?” The Malay shrugged. “He don’t cheat, that’s why -- but he could if he wanted to. No -- it’s true. Let me tell you: Caldwell goes to the Highlands to find a bandit named Oscar Babul. Oscar disappears from this world but Caldwell comes back with an Electus. I have never seen an Electus in the Highlands -- some people do say that there are some, but I don’t think so. Maybe, I think only on the islands. I think the pissin is Babul -- he has been changed into a parrot by a great witts. By Caldwell.” The Aussie smiled. “Babul fell off a cliff,” Caldwell took up the story. “He was too big for my little donkey to carry, so I brought his glass eye and his papers back here -- here to Port Moresby. Y’know, for the reward. The parrot came along because I fed Babul’s good eye to him for a treat.” The Aussie guffawed, but Ralph nodded to himself and with every line in his face alive with belief, or almost every line. “Soon he’s going home, uh, to the islands. The female Electus are red, and beautiful, and Paul Bunyan -- the parrot -- can’t wait to get back to bidness.” The men chuckled. “There is an island of sand out by Bougainville,” Harry said. “Some time after the big war, after the bad Japanese were beaten, a giant octopus got very angry because the people weren’t grateful for their freedom and they were so noisy and rude to strangers. So, he flipped the island over. All the houses, the people, the trees, the hills, even the pigs and the taros and sweet potatoes went under the sea, and the belly of the island came up to sit under the sun.” He smiled softly. “If you go there and if you are very quiet you can hear the roosters crow, and the pigs squeal, and the people sing: they are all underwater -- they are ghosts. But, the Electus, they flew away before the Octopus came. They are very smart. An Electus can see the future. They know when bad things come. Like tsunamis and typhoons, and war. ” Ralph didn’t smile but Caldwell did. Ralph said, “Nice story Harry. Nice story.” The Aussie looked with a keen interest at Caldwell. “You’re a Yank aren’t you, but with a different sort of accent. I can’t place it.” “Uh yeah, I’m from a state in the northeast corner of the U.S., called Maine,” Caldwell answered. “North of Boston. A jungle of trees, like here but different. It’s cold there now. Maybe snowing. I still have family in a place called Bridgton.” Why did he volunteer all that? Harry, the Malay, nodded with understanding. “I have three sons and a daughter, and Caldwell knows them all.” “Yes family,” Ralph said. And repeated more slowly: “Family. I have family in Norway.” There was a lull in conversation that possibly bespoke of sadness, or drunkenness, or both, or maybe just a deep philosophical and complicated but ever evolving conundrum. It was late. All were tired. The men drank, and conversation dwindled to clipped fragments and then silence. The rain hammered on the roof. A stealthy, small drip began in earnest and grew bolder as it increased in size, until it spat out fat splatters on the dirty floor just behind the beer drinkers. Suddenly: “If you fellahs were real tourists I’d put out a bucket,” Ralph chuckled, leaning against a beer cooler, drinking bottled water from Australia. Caldwell grinned, and said, “The rain water will clean the floor.” “Ha ha,” Ralph said woodenly, but allowed a soft, small smile to play his lips. Under a renewed assault of heavy gusts of pounding rain, the dim lights suddenly flickered -- “How’d a Yank from Maine end up in New Guinea?” the Aussie asked. Caldwell looked at the Aussie for a moment, searching for something. “Long story,” he said. “Too long.” “Aegis,” Harry said. “The war?” the Aussie asked. Caldwell shot a stern look at the little man, but nodded. “Long story,” he said again. “Mercenary?” “No. Security, uh, personnel -- not the Sandline fiasco. My, uh, the story’s too complicated. Too many twists and turns.” “After ’97 then?” “Does it matter? The Aussie smiled. “How does a guy from Maine end up in a British, uh, security firm?” “I didn’t say I was with a British security firm.” “Well, if you don’t want to talk about it.” Caldwell shrugged by expression, took a long slow sip of Foster’s, finished it, and set the pint glass on the bar top. “Another please.” Ralph nodded and poured. “They’re hiring right now,” Caldwell said. “Executive Outcomes, Sandline, and Aegis. Blackwater, an American firm. Others. In Iraq. Big money, I hear.” “Doing what?” The Aussie’s query rose an octave with interest, though the drumming rain had waned and so too had his volume. “I mean, the Yanks and the Brits, the regular army, seem to be winning, running all over Saddam’s army. They’re already outside of Baghdad. Saddam is through. Why would anyone need a private army?” Caldwell smiled lightly. “Protecting corporate interests. Oil. Banking. All kinds of fountainheads of cash in a war. Not just arms, but new sources. Carving up the pie in places like Iraq. It’s big big business.” The Yank smiled wider. “Like the Panguna.” “Not quite the same thing, mate.” The Australian shook his head. “I don’t see it.” Caldwell shrugged using his whole body this time. “An Englishman by the name of Tim Malcombe used to say, ‘Wherever there’s a war there’s a shitload of money to be made. Or, something like that. He was more erudite – sophisticated in his, uh, spiel.” Caldwell chuckled, the laughter purposely false. He glanced at the Aussie. “Mr. Malcombe used to be an SAS man. Northern Ireland. Later, in the private sector, he worked in Southern Africa but as far up as Sierra Leone. Lots of, well, capable Afrikaners working for Malcombe in those days, and Brits, some Yanks, some Vietnamese -- I heard. He came here to New Guinea, Bougainville. He worked for the owners of the Panguna Copper Mine. Was it the Aussies or the Brits that owned it then?” The Aussie answered, “You said it yourself -- Rio Tinto. Australian multinational, I think, but don’t quote me. Got Americans in the corporation, too.” Caldwell adapted his shrug, not Vaudeville fashion but close. “I heard Malcombe was under contract before the St. Valentine’s Day massacre -- the one on Bougainville not Chicago.” Caldwell chuckled off key, glanced at the Aussie. The Aussie nodded. “I remember -- I read the papers. That was a terrible thing that happened. It’s a mess on Bougainville” -- “Women and children,” Caldwell said woodenly, distantly, losing foreground focus for a moment. “There are things good men won’t do,” the Aussie said. Caldwell nodded slowly, thinking. He took a long sip of Foster’s. He smiled, working it out. “Yes. There are things good men won’t do” -- “Things are being done. There are good people in the mix” -- “The people of Bougainville are not part of Papua,” Harry interrupted. “On the islands they are black and on New Guinea they are red. Not the same people. Not the same ways. The Dutch fucked things up. Then the Germans. The Japanese, British, the Australians. Now it is a mess between PNG and the islands. They are not the same people. But it is about the copper mine. We all know that.” “Was the biggest copper mine in the world,” Caldwell added. “Ecological nightmare. Destroyed half the friggin island and everything around it” -- “Here, here,” Ralph said, and loudly tapped his bottled water on the bar top. “A mess.” “Agreed,” the Aussie said raising his hands to indicate all was well and there was no argument necessary. “You know,” Caldwell said laconically, watching the Aussie for mood and meter, “Sir Malcombe’s made a pile from war; he’s a rich, rich man.” The Yank took a long sip of beer slowly shaking his head. “And me, I’m a man of peace -- and I’m flat broke.” “Yeah,” Ralph concurred somewhat miserably. “You are flat broke, Caldwell. I can attest to that. Flat as a pancake broke.” Harry laughed. “A peaceful man.” “There’s always a war somewhere,” the Yank said watching the Aussie. “Kind of a sad way to make a buck, mate,” the Aussie said, studying the Yank frankly. Caldwell met the Aussie’s look. “Yeah it is. It is.” But, that wasn’t it: there was more to it than that. Nothing of what he had just said was that simple, or that easy, but he was tired and he didn’t have the words anyway. If life was a typhoon words were rain drops. The Australian nodded. “I heard the other side is looking for a few good mercs” -- “I’m not a merc” -- “Looking for, ah, professional men to make sure the mine stays closed. Getting the money from some, uh, misguided bleeding heart types in Australia, Britain, and the States too.” “Most of the time I‘m a poor man of rich conscience.” Caldwell smiled. He raised his glass. There was a heartbeat of silence in the bar before the Australian, then the Malaysian, and finally the Norwegian raised their glasses in a toast with the American: a worldwide delegation. The Yank: “To peace.” The Aussie: “Cheers mates.” The Malay smiled, “To men of rich conscience.” “Cheers,” Ralph nodded, smiling too. “To good men.” Caldwell grunted, stooped down and picked up the sports-car cap that the man from the embassy had left behind. The Yank waved it at the parrot. The bird spread its wings. Caldwell tossed the hat. Flashing through the air the Electus caught it smoothly. It circled the barroom shrieking, victorious, before dropping the hat on the floor and regaining its perch. No one said anything. The rain was pitter-pattering now, spattering lightly on the tin roof. It was still dark outside but another day was coming, ready or not, just through the dark there. “That’s the only real trick the bird knows,” Caldwell said. “He’ll do it over and over again, even when I tell him not to.” The Aussie nodded slightly. “If you take him out to Bougainville,” he said lightly, smiling with his lips but his blue eyes were sharp, watchful, “out to the islands, well, as soon as he tries that trick someone will get tired of it real fast -- someone, well, bloody hell mate, someone might just shoot him.” “Yeah, I guess someone might. But, the bird will do it anyway.” “I suppose he will,” the Aussie said still smiling but with more life and humor in his face and eyes now. “I suppose he will.” “It’s the only trick he knows.” “I guess it is.” Nodding in pleasant agreement the Aussie took a long swallow of beer. “Y’know, you and the bird should stay in New Guinea, in Papua.” “We’re, uh, travelers.” “Never too late to set down roots,” the Australian said. “Hey, move to Darwin -- Listen, mate, it’s never too late to learn new tricks. I’m from Melbourne: we welcome travelers there all the time.” “Too late for me,” Caldwell said with neutral inflection but with a sad smile in his eyes. The two men raised their pint glasses in another toast and flashed purely honest smiles at each other for the first time that night: they had enjoyed each other’s company and they understood each other perfectly now… When Ralph the Norwegian finally closed up, after his fellow travelers had gone, he noticed that not one of the three customers, not even the departed bird, had touched the last poker pot scattered on the sticky linoleum floor. He chuckled as he picked up the chips and the American and Australian bills. He muttered to himself, “It might not be about money to you fellas but I’m goin back to Norway.” -end-

​Mondavi’s Ride Home By Kevin O’Kendley

Navigating by the rearview mirror he turned into traffic -- a Mini Cooper sprang out at him from roadside bushes -- he spilled his coffee on his genitalia (not the city in Italy but the one in his lap) and he swerved slightly towards the curb -- yeeowwww the steaming stuff was frigging hot. Oh man no hootchy-kootchy with his girlfriend, Crimea, tonight. Uh-oh: he leaned over to catch a small rolling cage with a hamster in it before the lid -- ahhhhh -- the little brown and white spotted rodent was loose in the truck. Oh for -- the hairy inmate was due at his sister’s house the next day, a present for his brother-in-law. Were the keyhole surveillance satellites getting all this? The Mini Cooper swung to the right exiting the highway directly into a large copse of bushes. What the? The car vanished. Where did it go? Mondavi swung to the left crowding the center line -- there -- a propane truck honnnked at him. He waved peaceably to the driver to show no harm, no foul, and took a deep breath. Damn the hamster trickled down under the accelerator -- Mondavi kicked at the sneaky rodent and hit the pedal by mistake. His aluminum ’72 Land Rover shot forward almost rear-ending a yellow Peugeot. He slammed on the brakes -- the squealing critter juked, feinted, hid under the brake pedal mocking him. Chittering. Chittering. Oh God: chittering. He stomped on the pedal, the hamster shrieked and rocketed at least a foot up Mondavi’s pant leg -- Mondavi furiously kicked his leg over scattered newspapers on the passenger side floor. The hamster flew out but disappeared in the debris. Mondavi knew there was a Portland Poltergeist Times in the mound of periodicals but he couldn’t see that either. Huh? Were the hamster and the paper now invisible? That was funny. Ha Ha. His mind switched gears and Mondavi smiled in memory: he once told a Cuban American woman years earlier that he had invisible condoms. “It’s great,” he told her. “Like wearin nothin at all. It was the condom of choice for some European nations in the 1970s. Wanna see?” -- “No. There’s no such thing as invisible rubbers, anyway. Get out of my tree house,” the dark-eyed lady ordered him way back when. Then: “What countries in Europe?” “France.” “Get out.” “Okay, it was Ireland.” “Out.” Her heaving bosom -- What? Huh? The Mini Cooper! Damn -- It exploded out of a covey of hedges a block from where it entered the earlier bush-cluster. What? How were the bushes connected? By a root system? Some sort of matter transporter like on Star Trek? Awww --Mondavi braked as the Mini Cooper slowed abruptly. At that moment a Kim Jong Il Bushtracker Supremo Markster Niner Fiver Niner (just a North Korean SUV) in freeze-frame eased by in the passing lane with four people clapping-- a cheering section -- amazed at all they had witnessed in the last sixty seconds with the Land Rover, the Peugeot, the propane truck (made in America), and the Mini Cooper. Mondavi waved back, temporarily cheered. The hamster said something -- What the? Did the marauding surveillance satellites get the heat image of the rodent in the vehicle or just Mondavi’s vitals? He made a mental notation to research this idea. The neon blurbs were the brightest stars in the night sky. The gizmos were going up all over the freaking place. When was one of the contraptions going to fall from the sky into a public pool or an outdoor bridal shower? What happened to the virgin macadam space wherein Jules Verne’s Science Fiction Swiss investigation team flew through a natural vacuum to the Moon (in a wooden spaceship in 1865 to open cheese mines and to ascertain if the area might support fast food restaurants, which hadn’t, of course, arrived on earth yet as a social phenomenon). Wow, Jules Verne saw it all coming; ask anyone at Jack in the Box. That Frenchman was way-way ahead of his time or, maybe, he was just smoking a lot of marijuana. The hamster blurted something unintelligible, again -- Was that a British accent? Canadian? A smidgeon of Detroit? Yeah, you bet: a jigger of jaunty Michigan. “Father Time is the mother of all action figures,” the hamster said. No -- No way. Mondavi didn’t hear that! He concentrated on the rush hour traffic. The hamster wasn’t talking to him. It wasn’t possible. Where is that freaking Mini Cooper? He nervously checked his side mirrors. “Father Time is the mother of all action figures,” Mondavi repeated quietly to himself almost as if he were reciting a Manhattan Consumer’s prayer at Saks Fifth Avenue. What did it mean and why would a rodent say such a thing? He was a Key Bank teller at Canal Plaza but had once actually been an action figure, a croquet player in the Northern California Attenuated Association of Professional Croquet, or the NCAAPC. Under Sir Charles Barkley, the only NBA star knighted by the Queen of England (the big man saved the Isle of Man from sinking after a boating accident/collision) the league became extremely popular in Northern California, Italy, Moldavia, Corsica, and Lapland, among other places. Barkley established a style of croquet uniform utilizing kilts and French Foreign Legion hats making the uniforms extremely cool, and the full contact body strikes from stake to stake completely re-energized the sport. Once primarily a white gentleman’s (and secretly a gentle lady’s) game (the ladies wore external knickers but did so in private), it became a sport dominated by the Mayans (though croquet was invented in Cornwall by some of the same “Rights of Man” crew responsible for the Magna Carta), the NCAAPC is now 82% African American (2% African-American owned) but even in Mondavi’s day he was the only white guy on the team (he played goalie and outside skulker, before the“full helmet-era”). But, that was then and this is now. A couple of bank customers passed him. Each waved. One vehicle showcased a Romney For President bumper sticker on a busted-up Ford bumper and the other an Obama For President slapped on a decomposing Chevy, though the election was months over. This was one of those breathtaking statements about life that Mondavi enjoyed. He savored these nuances by unrestrained architects, loved the people that built and lived in these edifices of surprise, billowing free speech, challenging the barricades, shaking their fists and yelling out loud, loving their tenuous perch on life even upon that sheer rock face of social survival, though of course taunted and persecuted by gravity-- “Cage the rage buddy. Put it on a hamster wheel,” the hamster said. Was that a Dutch accent or Afrikaner? “I’m not insane. I had a bad day. No big deal,” he told himself firmly with a dour lack of enthusiasm. “Did I just talk to myself?” he asked the only expert in the car. No savvy the hamster jive: just keep an eye on the road and brake for large farm animals. Somebody or something in the truck grunted confirmation in Alto Sax. Huh? Control the mind Mondavi. Calm. Calm -- Up there on the hill amidst the ancient maples the Brobingnagian home (was that an Armenian surname?) had been cleaned up. Nice red shingle exterior. Oh-no was that a bush on the side there? Yes it was. Was that another bush over on the other side. Hmmm? Yes, it was some sort of bush or was it a hedge. It looked rectangularish -- Where was the flipping Mini Cooper, he looked nervously around? -- Hmmm? What was the difference between a bush and a hedge anyway? Was it simply that one was trimmed and the other was not? Do not go down that road, he ordered himself, the ramifications could well prove to be overwhelming. He glanced at his ragged mop in the rearview mirror and glared at himself -- Calm. The Brobingnagian yard had once been filled with many eclectic things, Greek statues, lamps, refrigerators, a stuffed walrus from the Imperial Valley, and other odds and ends, a handful of which had exotic names like Maytag, Sony, and G.E. Some folks called the cornucopia of materiel junk and an eyesore but Mondavi’s ex-wife, Dolores, claimed with abject sincerity that Gulliver Brobingnagian was in fact one of Maine’s most prolific recyclers. Still the Pragmatists, Cleo and Art, who lived next door claimed that the “junk had to go.” Of course, the deciding factor was Henrietta Brobingnagian: It was said by some of Henrietta’s former softball competitors and teammates at Hampden Academy that she was sour enough to begat raisins from grapes simply by grimacing at them. She told Gulliver that “we can make some dough with this junk and that is that.” During the subsequent and ginormous and historical yard sale a helicopter and crew landed in the front yard looking for Stephen King’s house but left with an abandoned gas stove and a couch from Sanford and Son, not the TV show but the other Fred Sanford and Son, the Japanese-American bounty hunters that used to live on 1-A. Remember the famous biker duo from the Discovery Channel who apprehended Donald Trump in Alabama after he jumped bail in Millinocket (Maine): the initial arrest resulted from a drunken escapade involving some sort of political mob and a fire extinguisher in regards an inflammatory debate during the last elections. Trump’s lawyers proved he’d never been in Alabama and the case was thrown out of court. It was rumored that a famous television producer and recycling affectionado who shall go nameless because of the Official Secrets Act, who was in the area “to go elver diving” -- of course what he really meant was “urchin diving” not the same thing at all -- at the exact moment the helicopter landed (though this could have been a coincidence). He bought the walrus after a stiff Yankee price war with Henrietta. Anyway, that was how the walrus ended up being put on display at the Lone Ranger and Tonto Museum in Palm Springs, California, next to Tonto. The back story was that after a poker game using fifty-three cards the Lone Ranger defeated the sea creature with a spinning back kick to a soft tissue area somewhere in the Yukon (though there was no explanation as to why the walrus was so far from chilly seas). Afterwards the victorious masked man and the vanquished walrus became friends and traveling companions until the northern creature expired from the rigors of the desert heat near Blythe, California, was stuffed and eventually ended up in Maine. The mother of one of his little league kids passed Mondavi in a three-quarter ton pick-up filled with rebuilt steam cleaners. She waved. Too bad she was married -- “You’re as popular as Ortho Weed Killer in a Caesar Salad,” piped up a small voice in what now seemed to be a Portuguese accent, or maybe Brazilian Portuguese. Wow. The hamster was obviously hiding somewhere in the vehicle, but where? Mondavi tried not to think about it -- it was too creepy and besides it involved planning, something he always resisted. Once he got to Winterport he knew someone that had a cat, a big cat, a real frigging mouser of a feral beast. Earlier that day Mondavi had been drinking morning coffee with Crimea. She’d only moved in days earlier but already the house smelled a lot better. He was sitting on a wooden chair that he had assembled from a mail order web site called Muzzles and Chest Protectors. Like many men, he prided himself that he could put things together without using all of the parts. He told Crimea that he had saved all kinds of “hardware, bolts, nuts, screws” over the years in assembling factory-pre-built things like coffee tables, Adirondack chairs, barbecues, hammocks, “force fields,” and so on. He then used the saved or recycled items for all kinds of other fix-it-up things, thus saving money and parts, over and over again, all the while donating cool things to the Salvation Army. Of course, the three-legged chair collapsed “not being composed of the necessary hardware to mathematically or in reality hold my weight.” Crimea cracked up BIG TIME, being a woman and all, and so he guffawed too (Crimea had an infectious laugh). However, Mondavi struggled through the rest of the morning with a debilitating crink in his back. Then: He was stretching in pain at work when he got served. He was actually given a subpoena by a govmint man in a black suit and narrow black tie, stovepipe hat (well maybe not a stovepipe hat), but with a pencil thin mustache probably drawn on with a pencil. Mondavi believed he smelled some kind of hair jell on the guy though the govmint man was bald, or in fact had a forehead that started just above his eyebrows, covered his entire head, and ended where his neck met his shirt. The previous summer the expert ocean kayaker and model airplane buff had witnessed a minor collision of two cargo planes on the tarmac at the Bangor International Airport. A heartbeat after he heard someone scream “no your other left” and “no your other right” he turned and witnessed the sleek newcomers (to free-market aviation) collide at two or three mph, if that. There were no injuries though cocktails were spilled on both sides of the aisle. Mondavi told some guy from Farmer’s that he believed neither party to be at fault, or both were (and this is where he made his greatest mistake because at this point he had no allies on either side of the aisle). At approximately ten a.m. in front of co-workers and customers, all of whom counted on him and trusted him, he was abruptly informed that he was being sued for damages by both sides of the Great Aviation Wreck and by the Govmint. For what? Suddenly: an insidious voice hissed in an Alsatian accent: “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” That’s it: the frigging rodent had gone too far! “Horse shit,” Mondavi grimaced. “It can also leave you crazy, self-employed, and, uh, working for a crazy man.” Calm down Mondavi. Don’t talk to the rodent. It was an eye-gouging mud season sky, isolated tendrils of Atlantic clouds undulated in winds not felt on the ground. The days were growing longer, the five o-clock shadows shorter. The brittle winter sun was growing fuller advancing with the spring. Hobbled by distance and going fifty in a forty-five zone he couldn’t quite see the buds on the hardwood trees but he knew they were there, he could feel them … He slowed and looked into the still life of the cove leading to the river and to the ocean -- And almost drove off the side of the road with a jolt of panic that speared his heart. Now he was angry with himself and slapped a big knuckled hand (he was a karate instructor too) on the dash. Wow, it had been a lousy -- “If you fall from way down here Mondavi -- if that’s your real name -- you’re going to have to climb a ladder just to get back to the bottom of the hole you’re in.” “Screw you,” Mondavi said with heat. The frigging rodent was beginning to get to him, and what was that phony Minnesota accent about anyway? Calm. Calm down. Don’t talk to the hamster. “I’m not talking to you,” he told the hamster.In a Spanish, though possibly Mexican accent, came this next part via a sort of radio announcer’s voiceover: “Though surrounded by an internal landscape of devastation, insulation from the pain of lost dreams, a battered though unbeaten fighter will still hold on to a pinprick of hope. And, in this gray Limbo a spark of hope is the only light to read by.” Huh? Mondavi thought about that for a moment. The crazy hamster or the satellite or cell tower technology transmitting in the rust-resistant Land Rover seemed at least at that specific moment to make some sense. How long had someone been watching or listening to him pontificate on life?-- “Cynicism is a self-devouring cage.” The creature continued: “A prison cell that creates nothing but self-doubt where all horizons are self-imposed limitations. Idealism as gossamer concrete, newly born, fragile and tenuous, can grow, morph into a foundation of hope, and evolve with invention, character, and salvation. Idealism can be a dogged, taciturn, and adventurous pursuit of life, building a future where there was none.” “Huh?” “Huh?” the hamster said mocking Mondavi in what might have been a Hungarian accent. “Is that you, uh, hamster? Or are you coming to me via cell tower or satellite technology?” “Uh, actually I’m a quoll, mate. I’ve been listening to your life for days.” “Really? Not a hamster?” “Absolutely not.” “The accent?” “Australian.” “Really?” “Absolutely.” “Green card?” “In my other suit.” “Oh yeah: funny,” Mondavi chuckled. “A quoll -- what’s it like being an immigrant in the U.S?” “Not bad, mate. I was having a good time, working hard for Rent-A-Wreck as a voiceover hiding in the glove box impersonating a GPS device. I’d say ‘recalculate’ and blather on and say ‘recalculate’ again, y’know until the client turned the bleedin thing off. Yanks love my accent, think I’m British. I had the job until I was mistaken for a hamster at The Bob Marley Comedy Fest in Portland. Got picked up by Immigration -- they cruise his shows -- cuz the Illegals, the Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians, y’know, love the guy.”“Huh? Mistaken for a hamster you say? Wow, a hamster? Really?” he said all this obviously mystified as to how anyone could be so stupid. “My name is Mondavi Gallo, yours?” “Kilroy. Kilroy Clive-McMartin.” “Oh, you Aussies got that take the woman last name-hyphen thing going on too, huh?” “Yeah -- I think we started it, mate.” “Oh.” Braggart. “Can I sit on the front seat without going back in the cage.” “Uh, well, ah, sure.” The Aussie climbed up and sat down. Beginning with the complexities of that “stupid hyphen thing” the two foreigners (Mondavi in American English and Kilroy in Australian English) talked in expanding interconnecting circles about where they grew up, relationships, children (Mondavi had none, Kilroy had eighty-two), that they both liked Budweiser and Foster’s, but they stayed away from religion and politics, and who, ah, was taller. By the time they got to the Village, Kilroy and Mondavi were entering into the elevated mood domain of “happy as clams” (Mainer for spiritually satisfied). The new friends pulled into The Very End Bar and Grill, a simple yet ornate house of respite geared up for passersby and locals alike. Mondavi opened the door for Kilroy since the Aussie was technically a guest in America and so couldn’t reach the doorknob. A couple of friendly guys were going to the Rec Center to shoot some hoops and invited Kilroy to come along but he declined, claiming politely, that he’d once been seriously injured by a basketball in Melbourne. A nice lady couldn’t find something in her purse and Kilroy volunteered to climb in and find it, and so he did. It was a spray bottle of Mace that the mayor took with her whenever she went to New York City to “buy pantaloons.” During a game of darts and over some pale ale Kilroy offered to fix Mondavi’s back via a technique he learned in his travels, this being a twist on the Heimlich Maneuver which he had actually absorbed under duress in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, during a cab ride to Lake Eerie after the driver choked on a walnut. Kilroy then cheerfully worked on several other customers’ backs in the bar once they understood that he wasn’t a hamster but an Australian. Everyone did in fact “love” his “British accent.” All this happened on a Thursday but boy things were about to change. Two Mondays later Kilroy’s accent became “Australian,” and he was spared the life of a hamster at Mondavi’s sister’s house forever (and got that in writing from Mondavi’s brother-in-law). He got a physical therapy practice going which evolved over time to include an electronics center, Laundromat, and conspiracy-themed coffeehouse fueled by rumors and innuendo from all over the world. Inspired, Mondavi, after banking hours, began an internationally respected blog on psychotronic weapons, electronic brainwashing, and at-home beer making (if you’re going to lose your mind you may as well make your own beer).Kilroy also began work as a computer tech in his “spare time:” with a miner’s helmet, a used thimble, and an LED light he could actually climb right inside of many computers to make immediate on-site repairs. Which led to this: Due to his miniscule size, hardy nature, and savvy computer skills Kilroy was sent off in a small rocket ship to the moon by the seventh grade class of the village’s middle school. Mondavi skippered “mission control.” He also designed the re-entry and parachute system on the module. After landing on the moon Kilroy planted the Maine Flag, the Australian Flag, and the American Flag. Kilroy also found and retrieved Neil Armstrong’s class ring. In an interview with the New York Times Mondavi stated, “It was a close call after splashdown in the Penobscot River. A pelican snatched the capsule. Fortunately pelicans don’t like to eat sheet metal. So we got the astronaut back.” On the dark side of the moon, the Australian-Mainer left behind a 12x20 full-color picture of a smiling seventh-grade class from the Wagner School, their teacher, an Apache from San Carlos (Arizona) by the name of Zeus Gatewood, and, of course, his friend Mondavi -- oh yeah, and this simple but very effective message: Kilroy was here! -end-

- My apologies to Hampden, Maine, for creating fictional bushes where there were none. However, I removed the bushes after use in the aforesaid story…

He woke up kicking, clawing -- The Samaritan swarmed, smothering the teenager. “Calm down,” he hissed. “I only want your wallet” -- The kid connected with a hard right to the big man’s nose -- The Samaritan recoiled with an agonized yelp. Blood shot from of his face faucet-dousing Marshall -- Grappling, the runaway’s left hand closed on a pen between the bucket seats. He grabbed it, jabbed at the Samaritan’s forearm-shielded face, grunting with each piston-like stab. The kid pounded in sync with his other hand, until, wailing, the Samaritan frantically opened the car door and stumbled out into the darkness -- Cursing, the fifteen-year-old turned and grabbed his pack from the back seat. He got one foot outside the Plymouth door. He created small mushroom puffs every time he touched down on the roadside of powdered dust. Mewling, Marshall struggled with the metal clasp of the seatbelt buckle -- Wheezing with grunts of rage, growing in volume as he circled the back of the car, the Good Samaritan came closer -- The buckle unsnapped, Marshall pushed off -- A kick missed the kid’s ear partially connecting with the side of his neck. Marshall grunted, half stood -- His right arm was tangled in the straps of his pack. He was unable to ward off the next kick which landed in the meat of his bicep. Marshall stutter-stepped into the car door, fell to one knee. The Samaritan leaned into the kid and the car, growled, “I’m gonna teach you somethin you goddamn piece a shit,” as he fumbled at the glove box. Marshall thought: gun -- He grabbed the big man by the tops of his jeans pulling the Samaritan away from the glove box. The bigger man yanked back. The kid let go, quickly slammed the door into the side of his assailant’s head which stopped the guy. Marshall cocked the door, slammed it again. Yelling in rage, he kept slamming until the Good Samaritan, cursing, slumped to the ground with his hand still poised in mid-air reaching for the unattainable. “Good -- you ffaughk” -- Marshall whipped the door hard on the guy’s crippled hand -- The Samaritan screamed -- And screamed -- Car lights topped the night ridge -- Marshall grabbed his pack and ran into the desert. He sprinted sixty or seventy yards into the reckless dark, reached a small weed-topped hillock hitting it knee high. He shot forward, crawled, lay on his belly hidden from the road. His breath came in ragged gasps -- bass drum beats in his ears. He struggled for control and quiet. “Help. Goddamn -- help me,” the Samaritan hollered, agony punctuating his demands. A pick-up truck stopped. Two men got out. Framed by a headlight, a man walked slowly looking around and over to the Samaritan, who was groaning and lay on his back by the half-open door. The Samaritan wheezed, dribbled with pain. “Hand’s broke. Hitchhiker robbed me.” With a wave of anger, Marshall thought: Liar. Goddamn liar. “Get my rifle Lou,” the first man ordered. Leaning in and then out of the pick-up, Lou held a rifle with two hands, and quietly surveyed the area. The first man kneeled to check on the Samaritan’s injuries. Lou, with rifle, looked straight out into the desert and directly at Marshall. “Don’t see im,” he said. “Where’d he go?” the first man asked the Good Samaritan. “He, uh, ran out that way. Just now,” the Samaritan moaned, and pointed with his good hand. The first man stood. “Hand isn’t too bad,” he said, “you’ll be okay.” The Samaritan whined: “Okay? Jesus Christ. Okay? Can’t work now. The lousy fuckin trash stole five hundred bucks off me.” “Five hundred, huh? Damn. Kid? Big? Little?” “Seventeen, eighteen, maybe,” the Samaritan moaned. “Big enough. Strong.” “Okay. Lou get the first aid kit inna back toolbox,” the first man said. “Gimme the .308. I’ll go get the kid.” “D-Don’t worry bout the kid,” the Samaritan said, “he’s long gone.” “Lou take care of this guy. I’ll get the kid.” “No, no,” the Good Samaritan said. “I need to get to a hospital.” “The kid first.” The rifle was handed over. Lou advised the taller man: “Be careful Pollock -- maybe the kid’s, uh, armed.” “He’s not,” the Samaritan said. “Good.” Holding the long gun in one hand, Pollock snapped on a powerful flashlight, the beam swept slowly over the area. Marshall ducked and the light passed over him. The boy crawled away; stood to a crouch, scampered making noise, hit a sort of a shallow wash and ran hard reacting well to the irregular plane but stumbling some, juking in reaction to obstacles, slowing and speeding back up. “I can hear you, ah, you thief,” Pollock yelled. “I can see your tracks. I’m comin for you.” “Leave him,” the Samaritan said. “No. The punk first,” Pollock said. Marshall ran: He’d been on his own, living rough, sleeping in the weeds for some time, so he had a working idea of his strengths but knew his limitations well. While he was afraid of the man with the rifle he was confident -- maybe -- that he could outrun him, that is if he kept his head. He had an aunt up north in Colfax that could shoot Marshall’s ass off from where Polluck stood so maybe Pollock could too. Marshall needed to put enough distance between himself and a good shot. The terrain was rugged with gullies, knobs, hillocks, weeds, spiny and hostile desert plants. While there was no moon the sky was crystallized by a canopy of blazing stars -- the kind of night sky impossible in any city. He had enough light to run if he were careful -- He brushed up against a cactus, stumbled and almost fell. He felt the needles go into his thigh: he groaned. He ignored the pain as best he could, ran across the uneven dreamscape towards a horizon of darkness that seemed to hang in layers like the sentiment down with the catfish in the Colorado River. Before a steep wash he stopped and looked around. There were no nearby lights, no ranches, no towns. But, Pollock’s flashlight bobbled to the rear. Good, the fucker was at least three times further behind than at the start -- Marshall slid down a wash wall onto a plane of irregular hardpan and river rocks. The cactus needles hurt -- he fell, got up, and crossed the gully for the next wall. As he crawled up the forty-five degree face, a ledge of loose dirt and sand gave way and he fell back down. He turned: There was a blink of light behind him as it peeked over the edge of the wash -- He felt a rush of panic: doubt and fear squeezed his chest. Should he hide the pack so he could run faster? Could he take the chance and leave it? No, he needed everything he had: the sleeping bag, jug of water, soup, food, pan, knit hat, gloves, a Goodwill vest, socks and drawers. He hadn’t taken his coat off in the car and he was sweating. It was winter in the desert, not too bad in the day but cold at night -- could get real cold. He sighed, took a deeper breath, chose another line of ascent, and climbed. Soon he’d be cold again and he’d be glad he was wearing the jacket. Marshall made the top, ran; stumbled a bit here, nearly twisting an ankle, but covered ground. He eased to a fast walk after he dodged a Stygian mound that offered him protection from sight and, maybe, any stray bullet. Pollock was yelling something. But, his night words were all jagged and jumbled but meant to Marshall, you’re fucked kid. He stopped: his breath came in ragged installments, rough and loud. He tried to quiet himself so that he might better hear, but man, his heart was pounding, pounding, pounding. “Hey,” Polluck hollered, “I don’t want you. I want the five hundred bucks. Leave what you stoled. Leave it and I won’t shoot your ass off.” The man was closer than he had been, maybe less than a hundred yards, but the guy had no shot in the dark. Or did he? And, the fucker still had to cross the wash. By then Marshall would be running flat out across the desert. “You’ll never catch me,” Marshall yelled, childish bravado a companion to his fear. “I’ll shoot you -- you goddamn punk.” The beam of light started moving forward again. “I got no money,” Marshall screamed, amending his bravado. “The guy’s lyin.” He paused and then lied: “He grabbed my dick. I was only tryin to get out of the car.” The light stopped. “The guy’s a fag?” Polluck yelled. Marshall hollered back, loud on the first syllable, less so on the second. “I guess,” not sure if this was true or not. “You better not be lyin boy. You didn’t take no money?” “No,” he screamed. “I didn’t take nothin. I’m not lyin -- you’ll never catch me anyway you piece a shit.” He added that part not sure of its truth but hopeful, almost semi-confident again. “I don’t got his money -- I got nothin. No money.” Suddenly the light retreated, dancing crazily, going back the way it had come. Marshall listened intently to Pollock and watched the flashlight corkscrew away. He’d come down from Coos Bay, hitch-hiking and by freight train, to pick lemons in Yuma. But, the Teamsters and the United Farm Workers were fighting it out at the grove and around town, so he didn’t stay. His aunt and uncle had a small trailer in the backyard in Pacific Beach and Marshall knew his aunt would stuff him with as much chow as he could eat. So, he stuck a cardboard sign out with San Diego on it and thumbed west on I-8. He had trouble getting rides until the Good Samaritan picked him up in an almost new Plymouth. The big man told Marshall he was going all the way to San Diego. After some conversation, exhausted, Marshall fell asleep: Man that was stupid. Shit, and now he didn’t know what side of I-8 he was on. North or south? Was he east or west of the Calexico cutoff? Which way should he go? He looked up into the night sky for reassurance, found the Big Dipper; found the North Star. Was that it? Yeah. But, to be sure, he reached inside of his coat pocket and pulled out the compass. It glowed dimly in the dark; he could barely make out the needle. He made silent figures with his fingers, tried to figure in his mind which way the parked car was pointed back on the dirt road, in what direction it might have been going. He guessed southwest but -- shit. If the Good Samaritan changed directions a dozen times after leaving the freeway, how far -- He decided to go north. North to I-8 and maybe safety? Or north to nothing? He pulled four cactus needles from his leg, grumbling and swearing. He tugged, squirming, nearly crying out, as the last barb came free. The bobbling light was gone. He couldn’t see a blink or a wink of it, but that didn’t mean Pollock wasn’t still hunting him, sneaking back through the dark even then, back towards Marshall, edging closer, closer for a clean shot under the starlight. So, the kid started walking faster; then jogging, stumbling, walking some more. He stopped to listen every now and then. About fifteen minutes later he heard a gunshot, miles off. It was a small bark in the night. A rifle shot? A handgun? It sounded like it came from the south, back the way he’d come, but it was hard to tell. It could have come from any direction behind him. He kept walking. It was none of his business now. Marshall was cold: He stopped and put the fleece vest over his coat and pulled a knit cap on. He was hungry too but wasn’t going to risk a fire until daylight. He still hadn’t spotted lights: no flashlights, no car lights: no houses, no interstate. But, he finally heard something -- Yeah, yes, he heard something all right. It was something good too: a train, and not that far off either. He smiled in the dark. Smiled wide. Was it the Union Pacific or the Santa Fe this far south? Whatever, he knew the tracks were near the freeway. North. He decided to rest for a while. He fell asleep for minutes, longer, too long? He stood and stretched, and strained to listen to the night. Sound traveled a long way in the desert. He thought he could hear the burr of traffic on the Interstate. He smiled. Yeah man, he could hear an occasional big rig. He walked north, tired but comfortable, growing in confidence. A dewy dawn swept by, quietly floating westward, changing the world from desert night to day, from shadows and dark pools to valleys of light. He found a rutted dirt road going north or thereabouts. He stopped, listening, drank some water from his canteen but did so sparingly. The water and the dark tasted good, the desert air was clean, fresh: he knew its smell. He walked on for about another fifteen minutes. It grew lighter -- What was that? Over there? Birds? Crows cawing and taking flight. And? In the light of early morning the road ended in a pile of what? Garbage? Plastic bags? Shit -- Bodies? As he neared, it was the smell that defined what he saw. Oh god -- There was furtive movement to his right. He ducked down behind an outcropping of rock. But, it was just coyotes. There were two, maybe, three of the critters. They were skinny runts but smart and hungry. He picked up a couple of good throwing rocks. He moved off the road taking a parallel course to his target. He edged closer to the garbage piles, eventually to look down on the sight from a slight scrub-covered rise. The dead people were piled in a heap. Maybe they’d been pushed from a truck, dumped? There were plastic bags, too. Some were torn open. Clothing? Shit, wetbacks by description, by the fact that they were dead in the desert -- in a pile. There were no cars or trucks in sight -- Just the dead people. And the coyotes. And the circling carrion birds. Waiting -- Exploring with splayed and nervous fingers Marshall felt something on his chest. There was dried blood all over the jacket, the Good Samaritan’s blood. Shit. That wasn’t good. He stared at the dead people, grinding his teeth. Hell. He decided, and reluctantly went over to the bags of clothing for a shirt or a coat that might fit. He tried not to look at the dead people, especially the little kids. He covered his mouth with his hand. The smell. He ripped open a plastic bag with clothes showing and immediately found a good coat that fit. It was better than what he had. It smelled better too. He took the coat. “Thank you,” he said, softly to the dead people. He said this very slowly but did not look them. Man, it wasn’t right -- Shit, they’d been dumped in the desert -- His curiosity compelled, he looked more closely: there were six or seven Mexicans. Human beings. Two children. Jesus. There were fat winter flies on mouths and eyes and noses and ears. The little girl was a toddler in almost-new clothing. He could see her small dark eyes, sunken, with no life in them. She looked sad, weary, broken-hearted -- Dead. Shit, were her mom and dad in the pile? Maybe the little kid, the dead boy next to her was her brother? Poor little kids. God. Goddamn fuckin world. Should he say something over the dead people? He rubbed his eyes. Some of the faces wore rigid masks. He turned away but the dead children were just feet away from him -- They’d been dumped in the desert -- Like garbage. Got to go -- Sorry. Lo siento. Need to take the coat; he’d never get a ride with a blood-smeared jacket, not unless he wanted to go to jail; and from there to Youth Authority or to another foster home. He dropped the bloody coat. No way -- Oh man, there was no telling what had happened to the Good Samaritan back at the car -- even though he deserved whatever he got. Shit, Marshall’s fingerprints were all over everything. All over the goddamn car. Was it a rifle shot? Marshall stood with his new coat clutched in one hand -- It wasn’t stealing. It was a trade. He put the new coat on -- it fit -- he looked around: The coyotes were just over a knoll and watching, waiting patiently. Marshall heard a bird shriek, not a crow, something else. A vulture? Out of sight there was a flapping of huge wings. He flinched, crouched instinctively, felt vulnerable. Man. Vultures. He studied the human beings on the ground, again: The bodies with nobody in them. There was no blood that he could see. Maybe the people had smothered in the heat, died in the back of a truck, maybe a U-Haul or something? He’d heard of such things. Then, the human coyotes, the men that brought them across the border dumped them -- got rid of the evidence. Maybe that was it? God: the risks the wetbacks took to cross the border. To get to America. To get to California. He held his nose, skirted the dead, refused to look again, and headed north, walking, jogging, then running, until the stink was behind him. When he finally saw the freeway, he was relieved, not elated. He felt safer, not safe. He tossed his old coat away. He washed his hands and face using as little water as he could cup ever so miserly in his hands. Man, he was lucky he had water. He’d go west, crossover and find a freeway exit, start hitchhiking to his aunt and uncle’s house in P.B. His arm, leg, and neck suddenly ached. He felt sick to his stomach. He was limping and trembling slightly. Man, his legs were dead tired. When had that happened? He stopped, sucked in a big breath of life and looked back the way he’d come. A crisp wind was picking up with good clean desert currents and eddies. It was going to be a nice looking day, high wispy clouds. It was pale blue up there. For a moment, he imagined that he could or did see flying scavengers circling far off in the distance, though he was never sure later when he thought about it. He said very softly to the dead: “I’m sorry. Lo siento, lo siento,” and started limping towards the freeway, Pacific Beach, the ocean, good food, clean sheets, the trailer, family, and, maybe, the rest of his life. -end-

​ From America’s gutter to the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted: maybe all a crooked man needs is something more important than himself to care about, like a child, family, faith. Maybe then he is no longer…

The Prisoner By Kevin O’Kendley

It was never quiet. The screaming of the insane, the constant monkey-chatter of the lonely, the banging of the cell doors and the shouts of guards attacked him in furious squalls that left him battered. His senses were worn to shreds over endless days and nights that never seemed to bring a dawn, pounded by wave after wave of the cataclysmic nuthouse drone of the Max Unit, as he remained moored and anchored in his cell for life -- Or, for one hundred and forty years, whichever came first. He slept on a skinny foam pad on a concrete slab that some bureaucrat called a bed but was really part of the state’s revenge for his four escapes. His body ached every morning: his mind, tormented, tortured. He never really got any sleep -- That was the point. But did he belong there? Was he like the others in the Max Unit? He thought about that honestly: it was important to see and know the truth. He’d been a career criminal: He never killed anyone. Man, he’d never been a violent man -- God forbid -- he never raped anyone -- He never raised a hand to a woman in his life, never even came close. He never harmed or would ever harm a child: He had a daughter of his own, a child he loved without reservation or fanfare. But, there he was in a cell in the Max Unit for over twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week with other lifers -- some monsters -- that Arkansas had hunted, convicted, and locked up. Sometimes he felt that the lucky ones were those inmates the state killed outright… Prisoner # 75423, Jerome Bargo, prayed for the understanding of all that had gone before in his life -- He needed to see the truth: he had to know, to understand why he was in the Max Unit -- how he put himself where he was. He prayed to God for forgiveness: For all he’d done wrong, for those he’d wronged. He prayed for strength, because through strength he could keep his hope alive -- And through daily prayer he could muster the hope to survive another day and night in hell, and another after that, until he could be with his family again.

America’s Most Wanted made him infamous, a cardboard cutout villain. The show dramatized his compelling life of crime. It was good TV. After all he’d been raised a fatherless, motherless thief, to be an old time safe peeler and there weren’t many of those around anymore. After his half dozen escapes from prisons and jails around the country he became notorious in law enforcement circles too. He was Jerome “Houdini” Bargo.

Jerome Bargo watched the birds out of the window, a palm-wide slash of reinforced glass in stark cement. He read for hours and hours the ten books he was allowed in his cell, which had to be mailed directly from the vendor, there were no trips to the prison library. He’d practice yoga, exercise in his tiny mad cubicle. He’d daydream of freedom. He’d think about the past but plan for the future, the things he would do for his little girl, the picnics, the playgrounds, and the trips to the white beaches of the Caribbean. Man he missed her.

In the lush night, after one escape and flight to Europe, the fugitive crossed the border into the Maine woods with heart pounding -- He smiled: He was home. Back in America. Houdini thought the northern forest beautiful, with primeval woods spread out over mountains and around lakes, cut up more by rivers, brooks, and ponds than by the hand of man. He wanted walk out into the trees, stay, hide. But, he had to keep moving.

On the run with a trailer full of stolen videos, he and a partner had been pulled over late one night outside of a small Arkansas town. In a blur of action with no plan but escape, there was a violent, spontaneous struggle. Unarmed, he disarmed one officer and used the policeman’s gun in the ensuing shoot-out, seriously wounding a second officer. Captured, Jerome Bargo escaped from jail. On the run he was sentenced to one hundred and forty years for attempted murder. He was gone for more than fifiteen years. It was in this absence, wherein he was blamed for a variety of crimes he hadn’t committed -- added to the truth of who he was and what he had done -- that his notoriety became ugly built through the abstract lens of a television camera. But, he was grateful Officer James Dray lived and deeply sorry he’d shot a human being with a family, a cop that risked his life doing his job. Not long after his escape, a Kentucky State Trooper was tragically murdered near Bargo’s boyhood home. America’s Most Wanted seized upon this sound-bite morsel to enhance the menace of the shadowy collage of a boogeyman, to arm the armed and dangerous rep of a man who had never been known to be violent or at least not up until his shootout with Arkansas police. However, Jerome Bargo was already out of the country by the time the Kentucky Trooper had been murdered and he could prove it; Houdini wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. But, he’d been captured and was no longer relevant -- America’s Most Wanted -- the media -- wasn’t interested anymore.

He’d gotten a job as a school crossing guard with a badge on his vest. He was proud and eager to do the job. He felt immense satisfaction and smiled the whole time he worked. He joked with the other kids just like he had finally become one of them; as if he’d found a home after all the years of being shuttled from family to family like a bothersome chain letter. But, when his uncle showed up in Chicago to do another kind of job, the boy’s hero ridiculed the nephew’s job, and asked the kid: “Whattya wanna be a cop when you grow up?” He quit his job, helped his uncle scout a job, and busted a safe.

Jerome Bargo spent most of his fifteen years of freedom in Venezuela where he started his own heating and air conditioning company. He knew the business -- over the years he’d escaped from plenty of jails through heating ducts, a story Yank tourists on the next bar stool would never have believed of the muscular and jovial stranger. He’d studied the craft at Lompoc Federal Prison when he was twenty with the hopes of an honest future, but that was before Arkansas came to get him for his first escape, and he was dragged back into a nightmare prison system made infamous by Robert Redford’s movie, Brubaker. He had a good life in Venezuela, one he’d started from scratch. He built a home and a business. He started with a tarp, a blanket, and a couple of bucks in the jungle. He found God, been reborn, and started a family. He had a wife and a daughter that he loved dearly, but after Chavez came to power and Venezuela crashed headlong into a period of rough economic times and dangerous social unrest, now an unwanted Yanqui, his business failed. To wait out the storm in Venezuela, and worried about his daughter’s future he returned to America with his small family. After walking away from a pot charge, the police got a tip from a sharp-eyed viewer of America’s Most Wanted, and Bargo was busted.

He was never again going to live in the kind of poverty he and his grandma had known in Harland County, Kentucky. No indoor plumbing, no electricity, burning coal from slag heaps, never enough food. No money for the doctor, no new clothes. No car. No nothing. He’d take care of himself, and send money to his grandma: He had a roll of cash in his pocket. His belly was full. He had new clothes on -- He just scored: busted a safe. While other kids his age were in high school Bargo was on his way to becoming like his uncle: Somebody who was somebody.

Jerome Allen Bargo had a plan. If he could show the Governor of Arkansas who he really was, what he really was, how he lived the fifteen years in Venezuela as a good father, a good worker, and a good employer, maybe he could get a sentence commutation. He could do five years in Arkansas and maybe five for the feds; so, maybe after ten, twelve years, he could go back to Venezuela if authorities wanted him gone. He knew himself: he knew down deep where a man can’t lie, he wasn’t a bad man, not a predator, not a killer, not even a liar. He’d been a career thief, not a monster. And, of all the things he missed, he missed his little girl most; a daughter who wasn’t even born when he’d committed his most infamous crimes -- Sweet Jesus: he prayed he wouldn’t lose hope: He’d fight. He wouldn’t give up. He wasn’t just a prisoner; he was a father, a human being who could still offer something good to the world. He was a spiritual and deeply religious person who believed in the Christian God -- He was lucky, and had the chance to pay for his sins in a life where many folks never do. And, he had a child, a little girl. He wouldn’t accept his one hundred and forty year sentence -- He would fight. He would never lose hope if only for his daughter’s sake. -end-

In 2005, Jerome Bargo, #75423, was incarcerated in the Max Unit at Tucker Farm State Prison, Arkansas. His history can be researched on the Internet at various sites or via Arkansas prison officials. This piece was written with his permission, participation, and was originally written in 2005. A friend of mine, I last saw Jerome Bargo in 1977.

By early 2016, Bargo was still in prison.

I have the utmost respect for John Walsh, formerly of America’s Most Wanted…

Through nomadic twists and turns, nonsensical stops and starts the bad guys got to the hotel minutes after Briz did. The battery was out of his cell phone: he didn’t think anyone could have followed him by line of sight from the airport to what was once the visiting officer quarters of McClellan Air Force Base, which suggested what? A bumper bug, satellite surveillance? He cocked a bloodshot blue eye in the rearview mirror that peered back at him suspiciously. “What the fuck?” he grumbled. A couple of old friends were sneaking around the hotel: They watched the watchers as the watchers watched Briz. They’d been planning this piece of work for months, by mail, fax from secondary parties, or as carefully as they could. Briz stayed away from emails, the telephone, and letters mailed from where he lived or any piece of mail or UPS package with his home address on it. Using a payphone at OHare he called Fast Freddie at a payphone in Sacramento. Despite being electronically drilled in the spine and anus every incremental inch on the flight from Boston, maybe by a little lady in a curly hat helmet behind him -- that he nearly barfed on in self-defense -- he felt almost human after just a few minutes of conversation with his old friend. He advised Freddie: “Act like we’re in the old East Germany and the Stasi are everywhere -- y’know closin in for the kill.” Which led to this: “Who the fuck are the Stazzi?” Then to this: “A bunch of German ex-secret police guys who went to work for Larry’s Handyman Service in L.A. after the wall came down.” Then to this: “So we gotta worry about, what? -- handymen from L.A? Is that it?” And, finally to this: “Yeah, handymen, uh, IHOP cooks, nurses, painters” -- Laughing, they hung up. It was the first good laugh Briz had in months. The good guys kept watch as the bad guys cruised the parking lot outside Briz’s second floor window, honked -- beep beep -- to wake him up, then moved out slowly, gliding through the school of parked cars -- shimmering sharks -- honking, again. Gang stalkers in a couple of trucks with Nevada plates, a half dozen with California tags on an eclectic mix of vehicles, including two 4WD mudders with red Sierra dirt high on the doors, harassed Briz until morning. During the first shift, White Alvin and Big Luis watched as disembodied hands in a window pointed a carbine-sized device with a small bell antenna in the direction of Briz’s room. As it turned out it wasn’t a listening device. Inside the hotel room the radio buzzed, burped, sputtered, the TV popped and sizzled at every pull of the EMP Rifle’s trigger. Briz unplugged the TV after disconnecting the cable, removed the battery from his cell phone minutes after putting it back in, which was a normal routine at every motel room in which he stayed, when -- “This isn’t over until you’re dead,” a disembodied voice whispered through the room. “Fuck you,” Briz said softly as he unplugged the radio and put it in the bathtub. Despite this precaution the bad guys could still wanker a static blast out of the radio that was loud enough to wake him up. Sometimes, he was so sleep deprived he could barely operate the quantum mechanics of a hat so he would put the radio in the trunk of his rental -- which of course looked like theft -- so the truth wouldn’t work if he got caught. “I know you can hear me, so fuck you” -- He winced -- shot in the heart. The searing blast came from the next room or the next room after that or maybe even the room after that. He got hit again, turned, crouched, but said nothing. Over the years Briz had adapted and learned to live with this torture. He became acclimatized to the regimens. He seldom felt overwhelmed anymore but was resigned to the crucifixion and mindless numbness of torture -- There would be torture, and more torture, and more torture -- After a tough night of electronic attacks, he was often surprised to find himself alive in the morning, rarely harbored any real elation, and was sometimes actually disappointed. Briz dug up a wealth of info on the web, used the caveman approach in reading reference books, too, on a variety of related gang stalking and electronic harassment issues, the least of which was how he was targeted without a line of sight. First responder’s technology could locate heartbeat and respiration of a human target through tons of debris. There was more complicated “see through the wall” x-ray, thermal imaging and electromagnetic radar available. There were even reports of Americans having had microchips placed in their bodies without consent. One such case -- James Walbert -- became foundational evidence in Congress and front page news. Chipping without patient consent became illegal in over twenty states, and counting. Briz got a CAT Scan: no chips. Nothing there… Actually, he gained proof he had a brain, which was a relief, sort of. Now what to do with it? Damn, he got hit in the heart again with a sizzling zap that might fool the uninitiated into believing it was a heart attack. Depending on power, force, makeup -- ultrasonic, microwave -- a transmission could disable a diabetes pump or kill someone with a pacemaker. Electronic harassment was illegal in three states because various transmissions could cause seizures, broken teeth, full body spasms, deep muscle, tendon, and spinal injuries. By targeting a pilot or driver electronic weapons could result in auto and aircraft accidents, and cause a competent swimmer to drown in the bathtub. His torture was a 24/7. The often debilitating attacks, life-destroying for targets, were obvious to the victim but invisible to on-lookers. Briz considered, lamented, and worried how many Americans might have been driven insensible, insane, made homeless, murdered, compelled to suicide, or to commit murder by the regimens of torture. From strategic locations and separate hotel rooms, three-hundred-pound White Alvin and 5-5 Big Luis watched as a lone white male entered the west end of Briz’s building with, probably, a keycard, and hastily exited from the east by way of a central doorway after pounding on Briz’s door. Black Alvin and Fast Freddie, on the second watch, kept vigil as Briz got several one-ring hang-ups. Eventually, he unplugged the phone, which was also a part of his usual routine in every hotel room he stayed. At four-thirty some remedial idiot in a cab drove by and screamed, “Asshole,” out of a passenger window. Inside, Briz muttered, “Takes one to know one.” But, for the first time in a long time he didn’t feel alone -- He smiled. The bad guys had been gang-stalking Briz for seven years. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it -- Why? Well, that was the tough part: there was no translatable reason anyone sane might understand, which certainly made it easier to explain to someone that wasn’t. Fortunately, Briz had some old friends whose sanity was in question and had been for many years.Maybe the harassment stemmed from a bar fight, a letter to the editor, or both, or none of the above. Maybe he looked at someone in a wrong way, or slept with the wrong woman -- though if it had been the wrong woman he wanted to do it again. But gang stalking didn’t foster relationships. His marriage ended in the second year of his gang stalking. No one told him why he was harassed and tortured. He lived under progressively worsening gang stalking over the years until it became a way of life. Though hobbled, wounded, injured, he survived within the collapsing margins of a never-ending nightmare. Briz -- his little brother couldn’t say Boris when they were kids -- had a part time job as a janitor. He usually worked whatever job he could get or manage to keep, which was an issue. But, he used to be a carpenter, a good one With a blast of nausea and a piercing headache -- the result of an ultrasonic attack -- Briz got up late, maybe ten or so. He didn’t want to think about the damage to his testicles done by the microwave attacks, which played havoc with his yo yo. His biggest worry was sleep. He figured if he could hijack 3 or 4 hours of sleep out of a 10-hour shift he’d be styling, never mind his nuts. His old friends and Briz made no contact during the night, no phone calls, no personal appearances, there were no smoke signals.

Briz drove across the Sacramento River to a bar in West Sac, went inside, changed shirts, put on long pants and a ball cap, and left out the back door with Black Alvin who had been waiting patiently for him. He hurried out into the June day beneath Alvin’s tree-like shadow; familiar with this particular eclipse of the sun. They climbed into Pastor Alvin’s late model windowless van and headed to a diner over on the south side of the capital city. Steaming south on 99, parallel at some distance to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks, the area being an embarkation point where Briz hopped freight trains as a youth, Black Alvin said, “You’re not gonna jump a train if they blow a whistle or a horn or somethin are you?” “Funny,” Briz chuckled, and lobbed back, “Whatza matter couldn’t you borrow your mama’s car?” They both erupted with clean laughter, though Briz’s ha ha got a little manic. See: when the two almost old guys were about fifteen they borrowed Alvin’s mother’s car while she was asleep (it being about two a.m. in the morning). Of course she caught the delinquents when they got back to Alvin’s house around four and the well-known Bible thumper thumped them with a well-known Bible until they feared the Word of the Lord in the Hands of a Righteous Woman, Hallelujah and Amen. “This is the best undercovermobile for the job,” Black Alvin smiled. “No one will expect to find a, uh, ah, a lost soul like you in this van.” Screaming in bold black lettering on the side of the older vehicle was this: The Word of Christ’s Baptist Church. Some people actually waved at them -- Briz -- short blonde hair, kind though grief-heavy eyes, a cruiserweight -- laughed: a lost soul? Alvin, a California Youth Authority graduate had become a born-again Christian in his miraculous journey from the mean streets of the old Oak Park -- where twice as a kid he hid in a heavy-duty bathtub during a fusillade of gunfire passing through the apartment -- to a sweeter Oak Park with a backyard, a barbecue, and real grass. They landed safely at Rico’s Breakfast House, a large and airy Denny’s-like place but with a colorful Latin atmosphere. Briz noticed no obvious pursuit by the bad guys, but paranoia is the mother of all pursuit and gang stalking is the happy father of said mother, generation after generation of destructive and creepy incest. After handshakes and a few hugs – Fast Freddie didn’t go in for any of “that touchy feely crap” -- the crew covered ground as old friends might, especially after not having seen each other for a real long time, and being doubly effervescent because no one married anybody’s ex-girlfriend or owed anybody any money or ate anyone’s dog, and, of course, actually recognizing each other since not one of them suffered from the advanced stages of syphilitic dementia; though their eighth grade, Korean-American P.E. teacher Mr. Simba, warned that this was a possibility -- no, a probability -- for all of them. They sat down to have coffee in real cups with handles, and a late breakfast. The familiar looking, fifty-something waitress, who had a young woman’s body but an older woman’s eyes -- beautiful dark Latin eyes at that -- after exchanging a few unuseful words told the crew that they looked like a bunch of “old football players” at some kind of reunion. Fast Freddie said, “Luis used to be our football.” Big Luis, all one hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, didn’t think that was too funny. “Watch it Freddie,” he muttered swirling his coffee with a spoon. In the old days Luis would have fought anyone, anytime, and for any reason. But, time and age, and chance, and sometimes even reason, change most things, and had for Luis. Still, Briz half-expected him to punch Fast Freddie, who got his nickname by quickly and deftly avoiding most forms of trouble. Freddie could duck, juke, and dance like Sugar Ray Leonard. Even the gangs couldn’t get him during one long, hot, summer of pursuit, though they pounded the hell out of Briz. Only Patty Clunk ever nailed him and that was for one of those paternity things. As the waitress re-filled White Alvin’s coffee, Briz proclaimed in semi-sorrow, “We’re so old that our memories are in black and white.” Without so much as a hint of a smile, the lady fired back: “Talkies or silent movies?” Briz chuckled with big round goggle eyes -- “What was it your brother used to say?” Black Alvin asked Briz. “About being half the man -- you know -- you remember?” He did. “We’re half the men now, um, that we were when we were half the men we thought we were.” “Yeah, here’s to Mitya.” “Here’s to your brother.” Fast Freddie raised his coffee cup. “Salud,” Luis said, and they all clunked their cups together. “Vaya con dios,” he added muttering, crossing himself: Mitya had been killed years earlier in a drive-by shooting. Shoe-horned into a miniscule booth with over six hundred pounds on one side, White Alvin and Black Alvin sat across from about five hundred on the other, Fast Freddie, Briz, and Luis. They ordered. Great minds think alike, so they all had huevos rancheros, extra spicy salsa. Though, it was possible Briz ordered what everyone else did because when it was his turn and he felt intimidated by the waitress. She had that piercing gaze thing going for her and had whacked Briz once already with the silent movie crack. “Good thing this ain’t a boat,” Fast Freddie, a sous chef at the Senator Hotel and ballast expert (having been a cook in the Navy), said, smiling (his second wife from the Philippines had also been a cook in the Navy and they had begat two sons of cooks). White Alvin grunted and foolishly asked, “Why?” Freddie pointed his nose at the Alvins and smiled even wider. “We’d capsize, man, with all the blubber on that side of the boat.” Someone said, “Shit,” but they all laughed. Briz looked at Black Alvin, smiled, and said, “Man, it’s been awhile. I forget how big you people are.” “You people?” Black Alvin asked, still smiling, always smiling. Briz loved the guy for that. In the old days Alvin would suffer calamity and mayhem and come up smiling, as tough as his mama had been. “Yeah all you Alvins.” They laughed again but not as hard as they did at Freddie’s capsizing-blubber thing. “So what do you think Luis?” Briz asked the master plumber. “They all look like you, man.” “Whattaya mean?” “White.” “Really?” Briz asked. “Huh? Not one black face?” He already knew that to be the obvious rule of his gang stalkers’ demographics but the more proof he had to illustrate the truth, if only for his friends, family and himself, the better. “All white.” “No Mexicans?” “None.” “No Koreans?” “No.” “Any cows?” Luis shook his head. “All white like you and Alvin.” He smiled. “Here’s a list of plate numbers and some notes from last night.” “Thanks.” Briz put the info in a front pocket. Luis had an olive complexion on a beat-up but handsome face with his short, brushed-back black hair, no gray. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with what could have been half-naked women on it, or mermaids, or women and catfish all mixed up. “Which Alvin do you mean?” Fast Freddie deadpanned, precipitating more laughter. “Hey,” White Alvin said indignantly. “White like me? No way. Those fuckin assholes -- and, hey, no one calls me White Alvin anymore except for my ex-wife -- don’t tell her what my name really is.” He smiled sourly. “Call me Big Alvin, I got at least two or three pounds on Little Alvin here.” He put his beefy, tattooed arm around Black Alvin. White Alvin was wearing a Hawaiian shirt too. It looked might have been dragsters and flying saucers, though it probably wasn’t. The big man looked like an aging biker or Thor’s Uncle Sven with a white handlebar mustache, red-turning-white shoulder length hair, atop massive rolling shoulders. “I got the height though brother,” Black Alvin said. At six-foot-six he had about an inch on White Alvin, so they weren’t exactly identical twins; even though they were the two biggest men Briz knew east or west of the Mississippi. When young, maybe more so in some neighborhoods, sports can seem more important than more important things. So, White Alvin was special in the old days: they all figured he had a ticket to play in the NFL, but injuries sidelined him at USC where he stalled halfway to the finish line on a four-year athletic scholarship. He set tile for a living now, and was a genius at it. Big Luis had a taste of glory too. He won the Golden Gloves in San Francisco a couple of years in a row, a lightweight, but gave it up when he became an accidental father. By his early forties Luis was a grandfather. Freddie had been a musician and never really got into sports as a kid but later became a sporting man, of sorts, and played the horses at Cal Expo and Golden Gate Meadows, and didn’t do too badly with the ladies either, depending on how you look at such things. He was on his fourth marriage and ready for a fifth. Like White Alvin, Briz was an unmarried “old football player;” given the gang stalking rigmarole he was lucky to meet any women at all. Black Alvin and Briz played some highly competitive ball, too, but in California Youth Authority where some great athletes no one ever heard of went to school. “You don’t get scholarships from Preston, unless it’s to the penitentiary or corporate espionage school,” Briz liked to say. Preston, in Ione, a juvenile facility wasn’t much fun even on the good days. It was built about the same time as Folsom, originally one of California’s first two prisons; both medieval granite castles, polished smooth in some places by the genuine sweat of misery. In fact, sometimes under their shirts the boys wore chainmail made of magazines configured like flak jackets to protect against assailants with shanks for whatever idiotic reason was handy to kill some other kid, either by accident or design. So, they’d once been kind of like knights in a castle… but not really. Fast Freddie and Briz didn’t finish high school, but the other three all graduated, though Black Alvin did it at Perkins, closer to home, still benefitting from the free tutelage of C.Y.A. He used to jokingly claim that he had gone to a private academy and the school crest was a big dimple in his upper back where he got stabbed once with a sharpened screw driver for being in the wrong place at the right time. Only White Alvin had any college. Only Black Alvin had gone to Divinity School. Luis and Freddie had never been in trouble with the law, though for the rest of them it was early on in life and never again, nevertheless they were all from the wrong side of what Briz’s brother used to call the Beaver Cleaver Line, and earlier philosophers called TheTracks. Three of the “old football players” had served in the military, but that was only incidental background for some and didn’t go to motive. “I agree,” Briz said. “These guys aren’t like me and, uh, Big Alvin here -- Hey, Alvin -- Little Alvin -- remember what the Black Muslims used to say at Preston?” “Uh. Depends. You don’t mean that part about someone stinkin so bad a bear wouldn’t eat them, you know for seven years from the last time they ate pork?” “No,” Briz laughed. “But, man, that was interesting too. No, it was that part about the white man still living in trees when the Africans had all those great civilizations, like Oakland and Stockton” -- There was laughter: “Hey, watch it. My people settled Stockton,” Big Luis said. “Then you illegal immigrants showed up.” Luis was something like a tenth generation Mexican-Californian, forever bragging about being a “real native” not like the rest of the immigrants at the table. There was some sputtering and guffaws at this but it was all Better Homes and Garden’s stuff. Briz’s parents had actually been immigrants, though, Russians by way of Poland, then Portugal, then New Orleans. Freddie’s father was from Jamaica. Briz said, “Well, me and, uh, White, er, Big Alvin, our families have been out of the trees for hundreds of years now but we climbed down by ourselves, the bad guys -- the gang stalkers -- those assholes had to wait for the fire department.” This broke-up everyone up and the “old football players” were howling with laughter when the waitress came back to the table. Smiling, she looked expectantly, politely, at the just-about old men, though seemed to keep some distance from Freddie. Maybe she does know him? Briz thought. “You guys look like a botanical display at the Science Museum,” the lady said. It took a moment of stunned silence but the guys all laughed: they were in fact all wearing highly colorful Hawaiian shirts, which some younger people might find extraordinary or simply idiotic but marked the wise men as unique vessels of good taste in the evolving annals of civilization. With a wink in his voice, Fast Freddie told the lady: “We’ve been talking about the time Big Alvin carried Luis the wrong way during a football game to score a touchdown for the other team.” “Cut it out,” Black Alvin said. “You don’t want Luis to knock you out again.” “Yeah remember that,” Luis chimed in while they chuckled some more -- Fast Freddie hadn’t ducked fast enough that time. The lady refilled the old men’s coffees but just before she left she raked Freddie with a kind raised talons sort of look. Yep, she knew Fast Freddie alright. Briz asked him: “What else about the perps?” “Well,” Freddie said, “most of the guys we saw were dressed better than you. Or, what we could see of their clothes.” “Big deal Jethro Bodine dresses better than me,” Briz said. “Had nicer cars than you, too,” Luis said. “Except one old rust bucket -- what a fuckin boat.” “Hey,” Briz said, feigning hurt eyes, “I sold the Vomit Comet years ago, man. I drive a soccer mom car now.” “Have any Tupperware parties?” Freddie asked. “Only on Mondays. I sell lingerie Tuesdays and Fridays on-line. The rest of the time I design women’s clothing, uh -- I thought about modeling it myself” -- “Damn, now I’m gonna have to wash my mind out with soap.” Freddie grimaced and ran a hand over his face. Unable to get a massive finger in the cup handle and frowning, White Alvin said, “I always knew you’d be a success.” “Yeah right,” Briz replied. “Notice anything else about the bad guys?” “Yeah,” Black Alvin said. “They don’t know we’re, uh, around. What I mean is: they go about their bidniss like they have nothin to worry about. It’s not like a parade but it’s like they don’t really care if they get caught. Like no one is gonna stop them kind of thing. It’s almost like they think that they have no, uh, natural enemies. Nothin to fear.” “Nietzsche Supermen,” Briz said. Black Alvin nodded, thinking. “Maybe. Maybe not: I don’t know.” When they were kids Alvin had probably been the smartest or the most able of the five in terms of understanding himself and others: he’d always been the one to put words to feelings and insights, to clear those things up that seemed fuzzier to the rest of them, especially to Briz. He reminded Briz: “Last time you were here a couple of police officers, uh, harassed you. That could be a big reason.” Briz nodded. It wasn’t much: a cruiser or two sounded their sirens and lights in just the moment it took to pass an apartment in which Briz had been staying, a cop harassed him on the freeway down south. In Maine: patrol cars followed him once flashed the blue lights at him, turned the lights off, slowed down, speeded back up, sounded the siren and lights, turned it all off, dropped back, and did the same thing all over again. “You say they do this everywhere you go?” Luis asked. “No -- the cops, uh, well usually aren’t a part of it.” “What the fuck do the -- y’know -- the gang stalkers get out of it?” Freddie asked, gesticulating with a coffee cup. “I dunno -- man, I really don’t know… It makes their dicks hard -- yeah, they’re like those monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar -- y’know the only indigenous monkeys in Europe. Runnin around with stiffies and humpin anything that moves.” There were some muttering and general table noises, a kind of rising need to do battle. “Is that a scientific conclusion?” White Alvin asked. Briz laughed. “No, emotional Dr. Poindexter.” Someone honked outside of the restaurant. Briz believed the bad guys used his cell phone as a GPS device. The gang stalkers harassed and let him know that they were around by honking, a generally unnoticed background noise of modern life, especially in the city. But, when the bad guys honked there was a pattern and it was constant and that wasn’t happening at the diner. Briz figured that he had beaten the surveillance which really hadn’t been too hard. So, maybe he hadn’t beaten it? Maybe that wasthem honking? “Well, let’s jack one of em. Snatch one. Get whatever we need from em,” Fast Freddie advised. “Get one of em to talk to us.” He smiled. “Noooo,” Briz said, though he didn’t think Freddie -- never violent -- would do that. Still, he warned, “Don’t do that -- I don’t want them to know you’re here. Want them to think I’m alone. Dependin on what day it is, they say I’m a murderer, or a terrorist, you name it, whatever lie works best with whatever group they need to network with. But, I’m always a loser to them. They do anything they want. The cops won’t help. If the bad guys know about you they’ll be more careful -- I don’t want that. I want them to stick their necks out -- way, way out. Besides, they’re the fucking criminals not me.” He took a deep breath. “That always has to be the difference. They’re the criminals. Not me.” There were some “yeah mans” and a “yeah brother” around the table and a few “fuckin assholes” and then someone farted, real loud -- “Man, that was rude,” Black Alvin said looking at Freddie -- They all looked at Fast Freddie. “Geez man,” a couple of the almost-old guys said. “Damn.” Luis put a hand over his mouth and nose. “Sorry,” Freddie said, wiggling his eyebrows. “When the bad guys are spyin on me and I fart,” Briz said, “I tell my cell phone that I’m speaking Russian for ‘peeping shitheads.’” “I’ll have to remember that one,” White Alvin said. “I want to use it on my ex-wife’s brother”-- “What’s this thing about the cell phone?” Freddie asked. “Well, I, uh, talk to my cell phone. A monologue. Uh, whenever the battery is in -- the only way to turn off is to take the battery out. They listen in. I nag, rag. I been doin it for years. I used to use the tapped phone at the old house -- the bastards work from inside the system, inside the phone company. The fuckers react.” Freddie’s dimpled and coffee and cream face was somber and doubtful -- “Yeah, I know it sounds crazy but it’s true,” Briz said, quickly. “You know me man. I’m tellin the truth. They respond. They react. I threaten within my monologue they punish. If I insult they punish. But, if I give them an excuse to feel, uh, contempt or if they think that I’m through, out for the count, they take the boots to me. Every time. Any sign of weakness from me and they turn vicious. They swerve their cars at me every day. Honk wherever I go. Hit me 24/7 with electronic harassment -- the same shit you saw last night.” He stopped for a breath. “Keep goin,” Black Alvin suggested. Briz sighed. “They torture me, day after day, year after year” -- He paused and blurted, “I sleep in a cage made of steel, aluminum, copper, Mylar, and lead medical aprons -- it cost me big bucks. It’s called a Faraday Cage.” “A cage?” Freddie whistled softly. “Man, a cage?” He put his poker face on. Freddie’s reaction was a verdict: He thinks I’m crazy. Briz was careful giving out too much information about what he lived with. Educating someone about the realities of gang stalking was a slow process. It didn’t always work. But, he pushed on: “I’m gonna put in for a transfer to Guantanamo. The Marine guards will treat me better, the C.I.A. torture will be more humane, and I’ll get some sleep.” Freddie smiled, wide, but it was an effort. “You look like you could use it.” Briz shrugged. “The assholes love to cause pain and loss -- there’re people gettin away with this shit all over the country” -- “The sick fucks,” White Alvin growled. Briz looked at Freddy, Luis, the Alvins: “I’m not crazy. People are listening, watching. It’s like the Truman Show.” “You mean the movie with that crazy guy from The Mask?” Luis asked. “Jim Carrey. He’s not crazy he’s Canadian.” Briz tried to smile but yawned instead. “Man, it sounds whacko, brother,” Freddie said, shaking his head. “I dunno?” White Alvin cleared his throat. “I believe you. If I hadn’t seen what they did last night I’d say you’re nuts.” He dragged a massive hand across his face. “Man, I’ve never heard or seen anything like it. Watchin those assholes last night, especially with that freakin ray gun -- I believe you man.” Briz nodded gratefully, looked around the restaurant. “I read that the East German Stasi perfected it. The Wall came down in ’89 and The Game crossed over to the West. The Klan put it back on the streets. In this country.” “Man oh man. The fuckin Klan,” Freddie said. “I believe they’d do anything. Those fuckers are some real freaks.” “You can say that again,” Luis agreed. Black Alvin nodded. “Right on.” “You got that right,” White Alvin said with some heat. “Chicken-shit weasels.” Briz smiled. Several of the old friends joined in at staggered starts, “Yeah man --” Briz was suddenly hugely grateful. He felt a humbling of spirit and a tender rise of humility: This is what he’d been missing, old friends. Someone that would listen to him. Someone that didn’t judge him; didn’t think he was a loser, regardless of whether he had a dime in his pocket or slept in the weeds, because they’d all been there. Briz was with people that knew him, that believed him. His friends. “We have five kinds of pie for dessert,” the waitress said. There was some grunting, audible thought in action -- the Alvins and Luis had dessert. They all had more coffee, and talked and laughed for a little while longer... Eventually, Fast Freddie paid the bill and took care of the tip. He wouldn’t let any of his old friends pay. He was talking to the waitress as the rest of the guys went outside and haltingly -- searching for the right parting words -- went their own ways. Luis had to babysit and left in a hurry: “The wife’s gonna kill me -- give me a call Briz. Tomorrow.” In the parking lot, White Alvin stopped in his immaculate old Ford pick-up. Uncle Kracker (who he called Daddy Kracker) was singing in the background. Alvin said to Briz, “Stop by before you hit the airport.” Briz nodded. “Yeah. Yep.” Smiling, the big man stuck his hand out the open window. “Keep the faith brother,” he said. “I’m on your side.” They shook hands. Briz smiled back, and said, “After you shake hands with a bad guy you gotta count your fingers to see how many they stole -- don’t worry about me Alvin, if they leave only the middle finger I’ll use it to speak to em in the universal language of love.” Briz flashed White Alvin the World-Renown One-Fingered American Salute. White Alvin laughed, and said, “Take care wild man.” He drove off into the Valley heat with Briz and Black Alvin watching him -- going, gone -- until he was out of sight. Driving north on 99 Black Alvin said to Briz, “Remember that game we played, the one where we shot the arrows straight up in the air and then we’d hide under that little league bench?” “Yeah.” Briz chuckled. There’d be six or seven of them and only four or five could fit under the bench. “Great game.” “Yeah. That’s not what’s happenin now is it?” “No.” “Good Mr. Boris Denisovich. Because people got hurt. Hey, remember when we shot arrows at you in centerfield?” “Yeah, I remember” -- “That’s not what you’re doin now is it?” “No.” Briz looked at Black Alvin: Alvin was over fifty. His dark face was unlined, he could be forty, or even younger. His ‘fro was gone and his hair was short. He was bigger than he was when they were kids, but just barely. He wasn’t fat. He was just big. He’d always been a good man, and Briz had always known it. Briz wasn’t particularly surprised that Alvin had become a Born Again Christian. Yeah, Black Alvin was a happy man, a father of five, good husband and good friend. Good thing too, he could have caused the world a lot of grief if he’d wanted to. The big man said neutrally, with just a hint of a smile playing his lips, as was always his way, “I know what the bad guys have done to you but I hope you’re tellin yourself the truth when you say you won’t break the law, because you’re right, that’s the only way.” He glanced at Briz. “Listen brother. Listen. Don’t be insulted. But just in case -- it’s not only man’s law but God’s law, uh, if you kill any of these men you’ll answer to God.” “Kill?” Briz didn’t know for sure if that thing about God was true or not, but Alvin believed it. He wasn’t insulted by Alvin’s question, and he answered truthfully: “I lose my temper every now and then. I’m not goin to kill anyone. These guys are the criminals not me. Eventually, that will be apparent to everyone, or to anyone willin to take a fair look.” “Good.” “Alvin. Listen. Sometimes things can seem to be sumpthin they’re not. Remember some people laughed cuz they thought you named your daughter after the lady on Star Trek? The good lookin L.T.” He chuckled. “Yeah” -- “Urhura,” he smiled, “Swahili for freedom, right? Man, people don’t see the truth in this thing yet but they will if I can stick it out -- maybe.” “Yeah -- maybe Boris. Maybe.” “Hey Alvin. Did you know that there’s a Fusion Center about a block from where I’m stayin. Headquarters for this area.” “No -- uh -- what’s a Fusion Center?” “It’s a state-run spook operation, part of the Department of Homeland Security.” “Huh?” “Anyway, the bad guys commit terrorist acts, measurable electronic crimes, just outside the front door of the Fusion Center. But do the folks at the Fusion Center know it?” Alvin shrugged. “Briz,” he said smiling. “Remember that book from Y.A. by George Orwell.” “Yeah, uh, which one?” “1984.” Briz nodded. “I remember -- but 1984 will only happen if we let it” -- “Yeah,” Alvin smiled, and nodded, being the good pastor at work. “Only if we let it.” Briz looked out the window at the jigs and reels of fast food architecture, and the California Armageddon traffic, and billboards and stoplights, and palm trees and oaks and pines, and neat houses and clean yards (with some crappy houses and yards), and the urban sprawl of the hopes and dreams of over a million people in Sacramento County, all percolating under a clear and sailing baby blue sky that he remembered well -- And he smiled: His friends had given him refuge and taught him when he was young and they taught him and gave him sanctuary still. Briz took a deep breath, almost a sigh: for the first time in a long time he felt semi-confident about surviving past the moment. But, but, damn it was more than that: he understood that he’d been given something special, unique, an image that imprinted the soul, the proverbial picture (if you were lucky enough to have the time) that flashes before the mind during the last moments of life --It was the gift of friendship. When he closed his eyes he could see the five almost-old guys wearing Hawaiian shirts, sitting in the booth, until he saw them as kids, again, laughing: And, he remembered what he had forgotten -- remembered and understood -- that he was a very lucky man because he knew some good people -- Some real good people.

Epilogue: When Luis said to call “tomorrow” he let Briz know that he should run. Freddie’s and the Alvins’ people would get him to the border, Luis’s people would take him from there: Maybe Briz could start over in Mexico, have a life; maybe even find a woman that cared about him. Maybe. -end-

They came closer: Four boys emerged from the night as shadows to silhouettes to hard eyes in bone-white faces. They stood in the alley within the pale of a muted light, which seeped from under a drawn shade. The old man didn’t ask the boys why they’d come -- A spike of fear pierced his heart. Leering, the biggest kid said, “I hate to see trash like you on the goddamn streets.” “Yeah,” another said, trembling, bouncing on his toes. “Toss him in the fuckin dumpster.” The raggedy old man flinched and took a step back -- The boys laughed like hyenas running through a fire. “I-I haven’t done anything to you,” the tramp spoke just loud enough for his words to peek out over the wind. The biggest kid snarled and hissed, “You fuckin garbage.” “Yeah,” another yelled. “Someone should kill you. Put you outta your fuckin misery.” “Yeah, yeah,” they agreed, hyenas yipping at the fire -- They came closer. The old man abandoned his nest near the steam vent, edged away from what was coming but there was nowhere to go. He was trapped in a cul-de-sac, and cold, colder -- He was sixty-four with a stooped and arachnid-eighty-year-old body, wore three raggedy shirts, a junkyard coat, two pairs of stinky pants, and boots he’d gotten from Catholic Charities. With dark eyes set within emaciated sockets he searched the winter faces for any signs of kindness, pity, anything that might speak of a reprieve to what was coming. But, he found nothing. He shuddered, a dank chill slithered down his spine. The boys wore expensive clothes, bright and lively: each pair of boots was worth more than the old man’s estate. The teenagers had cars, warm bedrooms, and futures outside of the alley. Most of what the tramp had was behind him, though not everything: he still entertained small hopes like roses on a battlefield. The boys came closer -- Excited: fear being fuel for the fire -- The prey was cornered. The old man sucked in a shuddering breath, jagged, but the cold air brought a fresh ache for life. He exhaled regret and grief -- An icy wind blew leaves and sheets of newspapers into the alley where the debris swirled around the boys, momentarily taking their attention from the tramp. But, the old man didn’t run. “You disgustin fuckin nigger,” the biggest kid screamed. The old man put his hands out, something distant from a memory that seemed heavy and ponderous: He pivoted into a fighter’s stance. He knew what he was doing, slightly bending his knees, feeling for balance in the alley, hands up, elbows in. There was a look of rebellion in his eyes -- Grunting, a boy kicked the tramp in the thigh. The mob swarmed -- He threw a good punch, hampered by heavy clothing, then another. One of the boys screamed in pain -- The old man was quickly knocked to the ground. As reflex the tramp curled into a defensive cocoon -- Fists and boots began to kill him -- A stunning blow and his mind was engulfed in a searing red haze -- Spared by the thought of his children as they were when they were young -- His fear snuffed out: He remembered the eyes of tender love and trust. There was a birthday party before he had fallen from grace -- Emile Rodriguez’s cheekbone was crushed. A sculpted smiling cut poured blood onto the spit-stained asphalt: There was a cheer of rage. Another kick splintered the Vietnam veteran’s ribs and punctured his lung. And there was pain and confusion. The beating continued, kicks, punches -- Rodriguez shuddered into shock: blood oozed from his ears and mouth. He struggled for another minute of pain and life if only to remember -- His children: He could see the five kids as they’d been with his wife their mother, his family, standing in a semi-circle, facing him, smiling -- Screaming -- Frenzied, the boys beat the old man for minutes: Even after he was dead. And, then they went home. But, it wasn’t until after the boys had gone from the alley that the light from under the blind was surreptitiously switched off. -end-

Some human beings are greater than the limits they know, wiser than the sum total of what they’ve learned, stronger than self-image, even if -- sometimes -- it takes a day different from the last to break the chains of …

North Butte By Kevin O’Kendley

Bingham Clayson looked out his kitchen window down into the two-block bottle neck of North Butte, at the south end of San Miguel Lake, where it was downsized by a small earthen dam and then renamed Rattlesnake Creek before it fled zigzagging and downhill like too many of the town’s young: The rain fell in frigid pellets; the water darts were like radioactive debris piercing the protective clothing of any one foolish enough to be outside. The searing dampness penetrated to the bone, and beyond. Some old men felt old war wounds. Some old women felt the old wounds that some old men had inflicted upon them. It was the kind of day locals took pride in -- a statement of a life that separated North Butte from softer places. The town was encircled by granite spires, some already besotted by snow, and swarms of giant pines, cedar, and fir. Uneven clusters of rain splatters bombarded the lake top at miraculous angles as white-capped swells churned across the gray water. A west wind howled into the village scouring the streets and walls and rooftops with acid rain from the cities in the valley and on the coast. The church spire, glistening in the gloom, rose with its white prow penetrating the downpour like God’s ship of war steaming its way towards heaven. Bing, a volunteer fireman, smiled at the fire station, which stooped and cantered drunkenly, a one-hundred-year-old tinderbox that looked ready to sprout into flames, even in the rain. Warm and safe, watching the scenic post card unfold in 3-D splendor, he smiled with a pleasure he’d known most of his life, the pleasure of being home: the quiet joy and ownership of safety, family and peace of mind, with no surprises or unseen dangers lurking in a community of long-known and trusted neighbors. Clyde’s Market faced the lake and a waterfall that crested the spillage trough in the dam under old growth cedars. In the summer, Bing would eat his lunch on the green grass, often with his feet in the clear, icy cold water. But, everything was muddy now, and winter was coming. The café and general store’s parking lot was full, nine, ten cars, some with bumper stickers including the just past presidential election -- Huh? Bing wondered what was up. It was almost ten o’clock on a weekday morning, long past breakfast hour in town. There were normally only a couple of cars in the lot around that time of day, if any. Maybe Clyde was raffling off the big mulie buck that got hit by a logging truck out on Dime Road. Maybe, it was a secret meeting of the Del Oro Citizen’s Council, a fraternity of well-armed grumblers that rivaled Trudy Williams’ sewing circle for gossip mongering: Bing smiled at that thought. The Council didn’t bother him: he knew everyone, from Judsen the Sunday school teacher to Lopez a hard-working prospector and carpenter in the nearby town of Blackville. He didn’t need Triple A in North Butte: if he was on the side of the road with car trouble, almost any one of the Citizen’s Council would stop to help, that is if another neighbor didn’t beat them to it. In other places, in the cities, like San Francisco, Reno, the first person that would stop might be a thief, or worse; though Clark argued that wasn’t true. Clark. There were two pick-up trucks in the muddy town office lot. That meant that Ronnie Julius, the town’s part-time code enforcement officer was around for his bi-weekly act of frustrating the locals. Deeson Bowie’s primer-gray truck with the giant, knobby tires was parked at the post office. It was possible that the night before, Billy Walker, a part-time Del Oro County deputy, made Deeson walk the mile back to his trailer or gave him a ride because he was too drunk to drive even in North Butte at two in the morning. Deeson drank over in Blackville, forty minutes away. There were no bars in North Butte, or at least there hadn’t been any in the last sixty years. A forty-niner town, by its heyday in 1859 there were nearly twelve thousand souls in the mining burg but by 1992 there were only about eight hundred left. There was no telling what damage the crazy pit bull could have done in twenty-five winding miles of drunk driving: bashing mailboxes, running over opossums, forcing hapless motorists into ditches -- if they were lucky enough to get out of his way. Maybe there was a cache of roadkill out there to be claimed for future supper tables? Bing could use some pulverized venison for his famous roadkill stew. He smiled at the thought. Bingham knew everyone in town. He knew everyone’s children, everyone’s dog. He did their taxes, helped them with their small businesses, set up retirement funds. He had lived in North Butte his entire life. With the exception of four years in the army, New Jersey, Texas, and Germany, he’d been nowhere else to speak of, which didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t want to be anywhere else. He loved North Butte. The town was his lifeblood. He was connected to the land and the people through the umbilical cord of family and history, just as his parents had been, and grandparents, great grandparents, all still in North Butte, buried just up the grade on Gold Hill and in sight of the pulverized old mine heads. But, Bingham was in love, and it was this equally beautiful and terrible thing that made his life in North Butte jarringly different, more confusing… more dangerous. Bingham Andrew Clayson stared out into the storm: He was of medium height, chubby, bearded, and at thirty, ruddy and cheerful looking with a quick, shy but infectious smile under sensitive eyes that watched the world around him with the singular concentration of an owl. He seemed younger than he was -- he got carded whenever he bought a bottle of wine in Blackville. At first glance, in the uniform of the day, flannel shirt, ball cap, jeans and waterproof boots, he was interchangeable with most other men in the area. But, Bing believed every man, every human being, was different, not interchangeable, not ever, each unique, and besides Bing had a terrible secret. It wasn’t a secret that might be forgiven like cheating on your taxes, or making a deal with Ronnie Julius, or a nastier secret like wife beating -- no -- in many ways, he shook his head, it was worse, much worse to some. But, Bing compartmentalized this secret: it was the only way he could live with it. He was one man in the town, the same one he had always been, and another outside of the North Butte, a far different man; a new man; a rapidly evolving man. His secret life lived in the shadows far from home. Except for the phone calls. Except, too, for what was inside of him: a leering cornucopia of doubt, exhilaration, fear of discovery, unbridled joy, self-loathing, and a love he had never known before. Of course, the love was the chink in the wall, the weakness in his image, the succor and the clamor, the arguing voices beneath the surface of his life -- he could hear the voices raging in the other room, no matter how tight the separation of compartments, no matter how solid the door. It was this love that promised to destroy one life, or the other, or both. But, he refused to think of this, though it dawned on him that he was thinking of it, so he stopped again. Out the window, down and to the right, an old oak and an elm spread their arachnid limbs like leafless bones in the darkening storm. Swaying with crooked fingers undulating in the wind. The ancient trees sprouted like growing lies, tangling and reaching. He shivered but shrugged it off -- that was the way he was, levelheaded, in control. They were just trees. As he finished loading the dishwasher, he whistled a jarring, meandering tune that had no name -- a melody of confusion. It was almost ten o’clock. It was almost time to call Clark. Clark. He tried not to worry that somebody in North Butte would find out about Clark, and so find out about Bing. He was very careful when he went to The City. Sure, it was only two hundred miles away, but almost no one who knew Bing ever went to San Francisco on a regular basis -- hell, if ever. But, still he worried. He couldn’t help it. What would happen to him if he were ever found out? He lived in an old farmhouse where reason and sanity could not be found in a single straight line, because there were none -- nothing was level, not a corner, not a sightline. He had to adapt and be especially creative, and have a good eye. He had restored the whole place himself, was restoring it even after four years with his own hands and a constant time-consuming labor. He subcontracted nothing out. He was an excellent carpenter. No one could do better or so he was often told. His workspace was in the old barn connected to the two-story cape with the old-style porch and woodshed and hallway. His home was a prominent figurehead in the town landscape, sitting just above North Butte, and had been there in an evolving form since not long after the first gold strike. Times were hard: The last few years had been tough on a lot of folks. Did Bing’s small business success generate some jealousy in a place where good jobs were scarce, and folks had to commute to Blackville and even further just to find work? Maybe. Though, this notion was as purposely vague in its irritation of his id as the last autumn fly that makes its way indoors: he tried not to let it bother him unless it landed right on his nose. Besides, many of his customers lived in Blackville and he had to commute there and even further to make a living. He had always been a good neighbor in a town of good neighbors. The fact that he didn’t have a girlfriend, he figured, wasn’t that odd in an area where more than a few single men lived alone. Still, lately, he felt that something was just a tad off, that in some way he was suspect. Maybe, just maybe, he was getting a few strange looks, odd and quick glances, from neighbors that would turn swiftly away. Maybe, he heard whispers in the aisles at Clyde’s a few times. Once or twice, old friends seemed to avoid him at the post office. More people were mailing in their accounting spreadsheets instead of stopping by for a cup of coffee and conversation. And, some customers weren’t coming back. But, he forced himself to believe that this was the result of his tweaked conscience, because of his secret, because he was being dishonest. Because, this secret caused him to feel guilty -- maybe he saw things that weren’t quite there. He was at fault, not anyone in town, and so, he reasoned, the doubts and suspicions were all in his own mind because he dumped it all there. That had to be it. Still, some other odds things had been happening. On his last few trips to the grocery store in Blackville, passersby had angrily honked at him -- though he wasn’t completely, totally, positive that this was so -- he suspected -- and was bothered by it. He was getting one-ring hang-ups at home too. And, the last couple of nights -- two, three in the morning -- someone had driven by the house honking, waking him up. He’d had real trouble getting back to sleep. Several more cars pulled up into the parking lot at Clyde’s. What was going on? He saw Charlie Simmons get out of his new Dodge truck. Charlie did ammunition reloads and was an expert gunsmith; but business was tough and he was having problems with the bank. Bing had a few suggestions for Charlie, if he’d listen. He decided that after he talked to Clark, if Charlie was still around, he’d put on his raincoat and go down and have a cup of coffee with him, and try to help him out, so that Charlie wouldn’t lose his truck, so that he wouldn’t get in worse financial trouble with his business. Bing always tried to be a good neighbor, a good friend. He really did. He sighed with aches and pains -- he’d been splitting firewood earlier in the morning -- eased his tired muscles down on a re-stuffed, antique couch in his refinished living room with the low ceilings and new white walls and new double-pane windows. He yawned, tired. He called Clark. Debbie, the receptionist, answered at the Law Offices of Flesher, Weitzle, and Podge, which Clark called Flasher, Weasel, and Pudge. Clark picked up the phone in a hurry, he was pressed for time. He couldn’t talk long. “Have you thought any more about moving?” he asked. “No,” Bing answered. “I mean, yes, I have, but I’m not any further in my, uh, pre-jury argument.” Clark chuckled and backed off. “Hey, I was reading the copy of the Blackville Sun -- the one you brought -- where some guy in North Butte was cleaning a shotgun and blew a hole in his hot water heater -- I’m no expert,” Clark chuckled, “But, wasn’t that kind of dumb?” Bing said seriously: “It’s not funny. Dave Wood’s out of work with six kids to feed. Might lose two fingers.” The edge of an old argument poked its head from around the corner, and Clark said, “Okay, Bing. Okay. This isn’t an attack on life in North Butte; it’s just an observation on, on something out of the ordinary” -- “Clark” -- “Do you love me?” “Yes, yes I do.” “Okay, then. We’ll compromise. You leave Hooterville; I’ll stay here and not go back to L.A.” Bing smiled. “You said you’d never go back. You love San Francisco. And, this isn’t Hooterville.” Clark chuckled. “Hey, a compromise is a compromise, a legal reality, motivation doesn’t count.” Someone yelled Clark’s name in the background of office clamor. Clark said, “Gotta run Bing. I’ll see you this weekend. Right?” “Uh, yeah, yes. I’ll be there.” “I love you.” Though the new Bing thrilled to hear those words, the old Bing cringed, and looked nervously around the immaculate room. It was one thing to hear something like that said in The City, but to hear those same words in North Butte unnerved him. He said, almost fearfully, “Yeah, yes, yes I love you, too.” He walked back into the kitchen and set the phone down on the hallway counter by the door to the mudroom. He stood still for a moment, looked at the phone in its cradle, grimaced, and thought: cordless phones, what a miracle breakthrough, I can walk all over the house and talk in the bathroom, the kitchen, the living room, the barn -- if I can only find the words, I can say them anywhere in the house. Suddenly he felt bleak, drained, tired. He was an accountant, a man who balanced ledgers, who saw his neighbors’ mistakes in black and white. He didn’t hide things for his clients. He didn’t cheat for anybody. But, he was cheating now. ​ He was hiding and fudging the books. Cheating. He looked out the kitchen window, again. Charlie’s truck was still there. There must have been fifteen cars in front of Clyde’s. He recognized both Council vehicles and other cars and trucks. What was going on? He put on his raincoat and an old canvas hat, and went down the hill. He crossed Rt. 87. The wind smacked him hard. His coattail flapped and clapped. A top button came loose on the raincoat and the lashing rain dribbled into his underclothing. He kept a hand on his hat and walked down behind Jenkins’ house through the mud, crossed a side street, one of only three in North Butte, and entered Clyde’s Market through the back door, after trying to wipe his feet. He heard raucous laughter, and then he heard his own voice say, in amplified volume, “Yeah, yes, yes, I love you, too.” He stood deer-still. How? He blinked his eyes furiously. One knee buckled but he stayed upright, and quiet. How? His hands were balled and he was squeezing them as tight as he could. How? He was alone in the shadows of the storage room; but the door to the market was ajar. He could see a dark shirt and a ball cap, the oblique angle of a man’s back. There were competing voices, amused, angry, some in his defense. His neighbors were gathered at the back of the store discussing him like he was a monster. He heard Dave Wood’s voice growl harshly: “What a sick bastard. Lying to us this way.” Brad Miller, the owner of a hardware store, laughed as a high-pitched flute. “They call each other every day at ten. They love each other.” There was a smattering of uncomfortable chuckles and irritated half sentences, and then: “So what! That’s his fuckin business” -- “Watch your language Deeson.” “Kiss my ass.” “Stop guys,” a woman, maybe Dana Blake -- a friend Bing helped file for a school loan -- said, and, “Gross. The guy’s absolutely disgusting” -- “He’s my boy’s little league coach,” Dave Wood said. “I won’t have it. I’d just as soon shoot the bastard.” “Better get another shotgun, Dave:” it was Deeson Bowie’s voice again. A couple of guffaws dribbled around the room. “That’s not funny Deeson. I gotta work, y’know.” Deeson laughed. “You ain’t pounded a nail in years, Dave. Who you fuckin kiddin?” A female voice: “Deeson, the language” -- “You’re just a born troublemaker Deeson:” Dave Wood’s voice, again. “Sometimes” -- Deeson laughed harshly, and said, “It’s wrong, you’re fuckin wrong.” Suddenly, the ever-ready brawler was in the storeroom, closing the door behind him -- It was the shortest route to his truck: he walked right at Bing in that quick bantam rooster bounce of his, red hair, pale blue eyes, and a punch-flattened nose. Bing was hunched inward, though still standing where he had stumbled back into a corner by a pallet of spuds. He was dripping water on the floor, making a disrespectful mess that someone else would have to clean up later. The Whirling Dervish, halfway across the room, had a can of Busch to his mouth: he didn’t see Bing until after he lowered the beer to wipe his Pancho Villa mustache with a handy blue sleeve. When he spotted Bing he smiled honestly and without a trace of discomfort. Bing’s eyes were red. He was shaken. He stood but it took real effort. Instead of yelling for the folks in the other room Deeson surprised Bing, when he quietly said, “They been tapin you for weeks, buddy. Don’t use them cordless phones no more. The Council bought some stuff at Radio Shack to listen in on terrorists like you -- uh, it’s not everybody, you got friends. You do.” He gently pushed Bing towards the back door. He added, not unkindly, “Go home.” Outside in the rain, Bing meekly tagged alongside Deeson as he hurried uphill. Wordless, the men cut behind the town offices and town maintenance shed making for the post office, which faced Route 87. In the gloom and darkness of the storm, the two men stopped in the parking lot and faced each other from about six feet. There was a lull in the pounding rain but the wind took up the slack and the two locals had to raise their voices to be heard. “They’ve been recording me for weeks?” Bing asked. Deeson nodded. He smiled -- a grimace. The two men had known each other their entire lives. At thirty-four Deeson was the town delinquent, at four years younger Bing was North Butte’s Eagle Scout. There had been little common ground to unite the two though Bing had tried to find some from time-to-time despite Deeson’s obvious lack of interest. “Maybe months, man,” Deeson said. “I didn’t hear bout it till a couple of weeks ago. Sorry.” “You could have told me?” Deeson shrugged. “I was about to -- I was.” He got in his truck and started it up. “I ain’t one of those hypocrites.” He turned and looked down at Bing, hesitated, rolled the window down, smiled crookedly, and said, “They don’t like me either.” He shrugged expansively, a gesture of freedom. “So the fuck what?” The younger man nodded absently but said nothing. “Who cares? They’re vicious gossips. Fuck em.” Deeson smiled nonchalantly, a slight frame to the hard picture of his words; then he did an odd thing and wiggled his eyebrows. Bing didn’t say anything. He’s wiggling his eyebrows. Then, Bing cracked an unknowing smile. “Listen,” Deeson continued, “I also heard that the Council is playing some kind of game. Called gang stalking, I think. They wake you up. Harass you on the phone. Get strangers to swerve their cars at you. That kind of thing -- hey, look it up on the web. It’s sick stuff” -- “Why?” Bing stammered brokenly, though he knew why. Deeson dragged a big hand across his face. “Well, you know. Because.” “Because?” Bing knew why. He knew now. “Yeah, you know -- hey, man, you need a ride home. Gotta couple of beers,” Deeson added, smiling more comfortably now. Bing slowly shook his head no. How could anyone be so sadistic? Deeson nodded, started to say something, stumbled, and ended by grunting up a semi-sympathetic, “Yeah,” and, “take it easy -- watch your back, brother.” The little big man hesitated, and ended with: “Those assholes ain’t the town, only a part of it.” The ex-Marine drove off. Bing stood there for a moment, dazed -- He turned blankly away. His thoughts skipped whole frames, fizzled and shorted. He felt dizzy. He wandered into the highway just as the mule deer had done before him. He didn’t see the logging truck. He didn’t hear it, either. All at once in unified reception, he heard the explosion of an air horn and squealing brakes, and he could feel the shudder under his feet as the huge rig attempted to stop. Instinctively, he launched himself forward and stumbled quickly for the other side of the highway. The truck screamed to a halt, almost jackknifing. It came to rest partly in the parking lot with only its tail end still out on the highway. But, it had been a close thing. Too close. Bing stood up straight. He’d skinned a palm on one hand. His heart was pounding, pounding, but he stood safely on the other side of the highway. Shaking with adrenaline, he stared at the massive truck filled with Ponderosa and Sugar pine logs, and thought: Why did the roadkill cross the road? “To get to the other side,” he might have mumbled aloud -- he was never sure later, whenever he thought of it. The driver, a bearded and familiar face in a frayed ball cap -- Clete? -- a man Bing had gone to school with in Blackville, rolled down his window, with face contorted in rage, he yelled, “You goddamn crazy fag.” And, in that heartbeat everything changed: Bing turned his back on the town and walked up the hill to pack his things. He was leaving North Butte. The lies were over; his neighbors had set him free. -end-

A part of the story is very loosely based on a true story that took place in New Hampshire in the mid-90s; the rest of the story is completely fictional…

The Old Dog on the Hillby Kevin O’Kendley

He sat on the crown of the hill with pine and fir at his back. In memory he watched over all that he had known: The children as they grew leaving small toys for soccer balls. The man that was gone, the woman that stayed, when both were younger and things were better, and they laughed together. The love, kindness, the affection of family. The spring, summer, fall, and winter just passed -- He would never see another. The man that was gone told the old dog that he looked like a polar bear, huge, dense but with a layer of smooth fat under a heavy yellow-white coat. The man admired the hump on the dog’s back, which rose in grizzly bear fashion when he was agitated, or incensed, or when the children, the woman, and the man were threatened. His family called him Grizz and though gentle he was ferocious when he had to be. The breeze was crisp with a tang of a new spring; it pushed against the old dog’s ears, the one that was cocked and its torn up neighbor, the cartilage misshapen and crumpled. The children and the woman were down in the log house. There were tendrils of smoke wafting from a stovepipe, dispersed by shallow gusts of wind. Upwind Grizz smelled the beech burning in the woodstove and sighed -- Squirrels ran from the back of the house to a storage shed, chittering, teasing the old dog to follow: But he was too old. Too slow. Hips weak. In pain. Tired. So he watched and remembered: When he could have chased and caught the squirrels. He thought he heard the voice of the man that was gone so the dog stood still, scenting, listening but it was just memory, not real, a muted echo of a time past. He shook his tail with a kind of hope looking for something not there, something that would never come back from wherever it had gone. No one said, “Grizz c’mere boy,” in a familiar bass. When the man was leaving, when the yelling had stopped and the children had been left crying, the man told the old dog, “Sorry.” Hidden in his words was a sadness the dog could feel but behind a mask of the betrayal yet to come. It was the only thing the man could say since now the woman and the children would have to bury Grizz when the time came. The old dog looked up and into the cottony pulls of a thin sky, he could hear the song of the chickadees, crows, doves: then the soft hoof-falls in the cedars down back of the house, white tail, two, three, maybe, graceful, quiet, wary. More than the squirrels the deer mocked him in their stealth. He waggled a ratty old tail -- He knew success only in his dreams, now. “Supper Grizz,” one of the children yelled from the front door. The family’s protector slowly got up, walked as an old swaybacked mule down towards the log house. The great dog ambled through an open doorway into the familiar, affectionate, dry warmth. One of the four children scratched Grizz under his bad ear and whispered something in the good -- In that home there was still love, still kindness, still laughter in the family that was left though it wasn’t the same with the man gone: the woman was tired, the children cried more, and there was less of everything. But it was enough for the old dog. -end-

​

In that world chess match between the Soviet Union and the United States -- on the edges of the board, far from the center of the game -- the African people were sometimes used as pawns in …

An Invisible War (aka The Forgotten War) By Kevin O’Kendley

Beneath African mists a wan canopy of city-light seeped out from Windhoek: Augustus Otjikatjamuaha looked back the way he’d come -- Two crouched silhouettes jogged around the end of a tanker car. Their voices: white men. Afrikaners? There in the light -- Not soldiers -- They came his way, fast -- Gus threw a railroad spike -- A man cried out and dropped to the ground. Another crawled under a tanker car, yelled, “Kafir!” Grunting with each tight follow-through Gus chucked steel until he ran out of ammunition; then took off running -- A popping, hissing noise traveled down the endless train, from car to car, signaling the testing of air brakes. The freight train was about to get moving. How far was he from the boxcar? He hustled over two lines of track, passed over clear rail, scampered over couplings between stationary freight cars, found his train, turned, and pounded up the line, running hard. He stumbled on the golf ball-sized gravel, almost fell but righted himself, kept moving. He’d had food and sleep in the nearby black settlement of Katutura. The township meant we do not have a permanent place in the Herero language, his father’s native tongue, and the same was true for him. Though welcome, he couldn’t stay long. A beam of light flashed and bounced at weird angles up ahead. He dropped under a tanker car, crouched, quiet, behind a huge steel wheel. In moments two sets of legs passed. Gus crawled out, checked the surrounding backdrop of freight cars under the haloes of yard lights up and down the tracks. His heart popped a beat at movement: there was a languorous advancing shadow, four, five cars down the line. One of the Afrikaners was still on the hunt or at least one that Gus could see. The electric torch moved steadily, jigging up the freight line -- Gus lay flat -- Hidden by an island of freight cars, a second shadow eased by the soldiers? or the crewmen? caught for a heartbeat in the dim width of irregular sweep of light. No one yelled out. Gus stopped in mid-stride, crawled under a gondola; then over the tracks. With heart pounding he ran the length of several cars before he knew he was on familiar ground. Sweating now, he slowed to a walk, saw a marker, and a boxcar with large graffiti-coifed letters, SWAPO, and a happy face in white. He must have passed by the open door of the boxcar while on the wrong side of the train. He’d fought in the on-going Angola Civil War with the Popular Movement of the Liberation of Angola but switched sides joining the National Union of the Total Independence of Angola. Despite the fact that he once fought alongside the South African Defence Forces and even Recce, the South African Reconnaissance Commandos, the South Africans wouldn’t be hospitable if they caught him with forged papers. He dropped, crawled underneath a parallel train on the next tracks over. He attempted to stifle his ragged breathing; ignored the jarring thump of his heart. He listened to the African night: The isolated and lonely drone of late-night after-curfew traffic, combined with the chatter, bumps, idling engines of the freight yards set-up a background sonata, but Gus heard nothing in the foreground. Damp with sweat, he felt the chill from colder winds sweeping into the yards. He lay on his belly, watching, saw only the shadows of hulking trains but no lesser shapes under the yard lights or in the shadows. Recently, in neutral Botswana, a South African raid killed fourteen, unarmed, reputed ANC members, including a pregnant mother and a six-year-old child. Gus heard the news as he recovered from a head wound at a farm in Botswana. The information proved to be devastating, the woman and six-year-old child were known to him, important to him, living, feeling human beings. His host, an Afrikaner, drove Gus to a point near the South West African border. He was done with the war and went into the bush unarmed. He would not fight with the South Africans as his allies; he would not fight for any side: Never again -- The boxcar lurched in chain reaction roughly yanking each car behind the car behind it. In heaves and sudden jerks the long train began to move ever so slowly forward. He watched and waited. What to do? He thought: Penduka: think. He heard a jarring noise behind him, saw nothing -- then sudden legs upon the backdrop of night, moving stealthily, slowly, coming his way. As quietly as he was able, he crawled out from beneath the train but hesitated: turned and jogged up the track keeping ahead of the moving train -- Someone ran after him. Four or five car-lengths up Gus dived under an unmoving train, crawled and emerged on the other side, gained a stirrup, climbed a ladder, and dropped down into an open grimy gondola. He started coughing -- a cloying dust, covered his mouth and though the sound was small it sounded large, giant, as big as Africa to him -- He struggled to listen for advancing threat. He stifled another cough, sucked in a long slow breath. Under apartheid, mixed marriages were illegal in South West Africa. Gus’s mother was a white woman, Portuguese, from Luanda . So his family moved to Ovimbundu, Angola. He and his sisters had been coloured in South West Africa never to be recognized as fully human. As mesticos in Angola they were human enough before the war started but as it progressed with the Portuguese replaced by the MPLA, the Cubans and the Russians, the South Africans and UNITA, all civilians became less so. While Gus was in the bush with the MPLA, his father, a reputed UNITA sympathizer, disappeared. He was kidnapped by the MPLA. By the time Gus heard the news, his mother and sisters had been raped and murdered. He changed sides; UNITA took him in, allowed him to fight another day, and another after that. He built up trust, distinguished himself through years in the bush: he was a good soldier. The African boosted himself up the wall of the gondola to peek over the steel side at the moving train, which was picking up speed. There was his boxcar, two or three cars back, moving towards him. He climbed over the filthy edge and down a ladder. He eased into the middle ground between the two trains. He ran. Gus glimpsed one of the Afrikaners running towards him, picked up his pace and his pursuer fell further behind. The train gained in momentum but Gus lost same. As the boxcar came alongside, the Angolan grabbed the corner of the door frame where it met the floor, bounced, and swung a leg over the threshold, rolled into the car, safe -- He got kicked in the kidney -- The searing pain slashed through him -- He rolled and slammed into his attacker, befuddled the man, tripping him up. With a surprised grunt, the Afrikaner fell atop Gus. The mestico jammed his fingers into the white man’s eyes, bit down on a hand. Gus broke free, was up; staggered for the corner of stacked wooden pallets. By the time the Afrikaner came towards him with a knife held low, Gus had a spike in each hand. The man -- no, just a teenager, maybe eighteen, dressed in civilian clothes -- panted in pain, and wheezed, “I want your money, bruh, that’s all. Joost the money.” “You get nothing.” Gus threw the spike with his right hand. It hit the Afrikaner in the chest. The teenager stutter-stepped and the knife went down. Gus quickly transferred the other spike to his right hand: his left shot out to grab his attacker’s knife hand. The remaining spike was held upraised in a fist with the point protruding downward. As bodies collided, Gus slammed the steel spike in the Afrikaner’s eye -- With a short moan the younger man dropped to the boxcar floor, boneless and empty. Gus staggered back, the train lurched -- he fell to one knee. It was then he realized he’d been cut -- left bicep -- it was a clean slice through his woolen shirt and jacket. He picked up the man’s knife, a three- or four-inch folding knife, tossed it out of the open doorway as far from the train as he could. He plopped down on the wooden floor, folded his legs yoga style; took a long drink of water, keenly aware of how much water he didn’t have. He shook lightly as he removed his coat. The train rumbled, creaking, going faster and faster. Through flashes of light -- some bright, some soft, some that came through the doorway in quick winks, and some that stayed longer, almost intrusively, Gus watched the dead man -- the boy -- with pity, with remorse: he did not hate this man, had not hated him. Gus idly wondered if this was the Afrikaner that had called him a “Kafir?” It was a funny thing to be called a Kafir since meant outsider or infidel in Arabic. But, Gus wasn’t an outsider in South West Africa -- Namibia -- the Afrikaner was. His thoughts folded in on themselves, and then again, and again; nothing made sense: Who was his enemy? The MPLA? The Cubans? SWAPO, the South West African People’s Organization who fought for Namibia’s independence ? The African National Congress? The Soviets? The Bakongo tribe of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola, the FNLA. The South Africans? Who? Who was his friend? What was right -- though what was wrong was an easier question. He no longer understood the real political differences between the communists and Joseph Savimbi’s UNITA. Or what the Russians, Cubans, or South Africans were doing in Angola. He was soul-weary, exhausted: Hedid not understand the war -- He understood the blistering injustice of it; the stroke-like fear in the faraway sight of the raped as they blamed him for not being there; the accusing eyes of the children that leered from atop distended bellies even as they starved; the seeping lines of grief lacerated into the faces of fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives who had lost all they loved; the tortured and the maimed who became in part or in whole separate from who they once were; and the Dali-draped carcasses of the dead…The evil of the war bored into his heart, twisted with agony until he learned to ignore it -- Until he could ignore it no longer. Gus stood still, a human sculpture of the African moment: Blood puddled on the floor, seeping, growing larger in volume. He could feel it more than see it. Another empty body… Should he push it out the boxcar door? Penduka. The other white man was a witness. Of course he would lie. But, what would he say? Maybe he would say nothing. Maybe the Afrikaner would disappear. Run away? Maybe Gus would be safe in Walvis Bay before there was any pursuit, or maybe there would be no pursuit at all. If he pushed the body out of the doorway, the South Africans would find it and know how the man died. They would find the boxcar, the blood: maybe they’d find Gus before he could reach Swakopmund. He could jump out, jump off the train. There might be areas bordering the tracks that would be mined. The train was going sixty-five miles an hour so he might make it and he might not. Either way, the Afrikaner’s body would be found. The South Africans would then know to look for a man that they had not known was there, and they’d find Gus, no matter what he did to hide. Augustus Otjikatjamuaha -- of Chief Tjamuaha’s people in the Herero language -- would lose his freedom or his life. Gus stood as a weary-arthritic old man, ripped up a T-shirt. Without thinking he tied off his wound. He felt a slithering chill; it was colder, the faster the train went the colder it got. He put his jacket and knit cap on. He had something to trade to the Reuter’s man in Walvis Bay: In Angola, he’d been with UNITA when an American surface-to-air missile, a Stinger, was used to bring down a passenger plane with U.S. oil workers on board. With UNITA and South African troops he participated in attacks on American oil refineries in Angola, including Exxon, Gulf, and Texaco. There’d been several white men, not South Africans, on one of the raids -- they were there and then gone -- they spoke English, though he didn’t hear much of what was said the English was like in the cinema. He thought that they were Americans. Maybe. C.I.A? Commandoes? He wasn’t sure. The FNLA had white mercenaries, so did UNITED, but not that day. The U.S. military was barred from the Angolan war by American law, though Americans were already helping UNITA. But because of the Cuban troops, the East German intelligence and communication apparatchiks, Russian war materiel, from MiGs to T-55 tanks, officers, and the Soviet support of the Marxist MPLA, Savimbi promised UNITA and the Angolan people that America would help, that this law would soon be repealed by President Reagan and the U.S. Congress. Then, millions of dollars of arms, medical aid, food, clothing, would be forthcoming, and Angola would be free. Free, he thought from memory, savoring the concept, the word. To be free. Free to live in a house with no walls, no roof, as the storms of war raged around him? Free. He could see the word, hear it, but no longer believed in it. In the complicated larger war that involved so many nations, maybe the odd fact that American oil companies paid Cuban troops for protection in Angola from U.S. and Chinese backed guerrillas, or that America and China had become allies with the South Africans to fight the Russians in southern Africa, seemed lost in translation. Or, was it possible that no one truly cared? That the war in Angola was invisible as many in Angola thought? A war only those that suffered would know or remember? But, American employees and, maybe, U.S. citizens had been killed by UNITA, American and Chinese backed guerillas: that had to be news. Didn’t it? In Botswana, the farmer, the Boer said that the French newspaper Le Monde and others had reported that the U.S. was secretly providing funds for UNITA via South Africa General Motors. So, maybe the Reuters man would pay for additional news, even though Gus really couldn’t prove his charges. But, maybe, just maybe the Reuters man could establish the truth in Gus’s information if the reporter knew what to look for, and where to start that search? Hell, it was an idea, anyway. It was something. Better than nothing. Maybe. At its zenith the Angolan civil war had killed more than fifty thousand Angolan children in a single calendar year, and that was not even counting the death, destruction and devastation in South West Africa and other neighboring countries. He’d read on the farm -- in the New York Times -- that some African leaders thought the great nations used the lives of Africans as chess pieces on the board of world politics. As Bishop James Kauluma, head of the Namibian Council of Churches, said, “President Reagan seems more interested in using us as a bargaining chip with the Soviets than in our dead children.” But, Gus, who could read Portuguese, English, and some German, had read too that the American people, President Reagan and Congress wanted to end apartheid, that the U.S. had imposed strict economic sanctions on South Africa. This position was mirrored by elements in Europe and Asia. He read in the Washington Post, in Der Spiegel and the London Guardian, about the southern African conflict and apartheid from the American and European perspective. He saw the Angola Civil War through American eyes in the San Francisco Chronicle. As he read, even as he was reassured he still felt abandoned when he finished reading, and returned the newspapers to the Boer. He was unshaven, his rough clothing dirty, he shut his grey eyes, and massaged his neck. He hated apartheid, or living separate, with its racial classifications, and its separate and lesser neighborhoods, and jobs, and public restrooms, and rights, and the grinding poverty of being designated less than human. He was sick of the brutal mess the Portuguese left behind in Angola and in Mozambique. He was sick of the whites that fought on all sides of the war. He was sick of his own people that so willingly maimed and slaughtered each other. He was sick of himself, too -- Bone weary. The African stood up, swaying to the rhythm of the train: he idly thought that this downward run of rail passed through ancient lands, which, it was said, reminded some of parts of the American west. He wondered, was it like the wild lands of some of his favorite writers: Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey -- He jerked in near panic when the train began slowing, braking. He looked out the door. Were the South Africans already looking for him? Stopping the train for a routine search? There were no lights up ahead. Lorries? What then? No. The train was pulling into a lay-by. He saw flashes of train light in the distance. Yes, that was good. He sighed with relief, and found inspiration: Gus felt for a pulse in the dead man’s neck. Nothing. He rolled the body over. There was no movement, the ruined eye was a mess and the good eye closed. The white man was dead. He searched the body, found nothing. It would have to look like an accident. He needed time to reach safety and then find the Reuter’s man; and finally to leave South West Africa by sea if he could. He had a boyhood friend, a Catholic priest, who lived in the States, someplace called Maine, somewhere in New England. It was cold in that part of America, with snow -- he’d never seen or touched snow. Gus rummaged through his pack and found worn socks which he placed over his hands. He fished his own wallet out of a front pocket, removed the fake papers, the photos of his fake family, wiped down every nook and cranny of the wallet, and -- grimacing -- used the dead man’s fingers to repopulate the fake leather with fingerprints. He did the same with several one rand notes. He put three rand in the wallet and shoved the wallet into the Afrikaner’s back pocket. When the train finally shuddered to a complete stop in the lay-by, Gus positioned the body behind the edge of the doorway and out of view of the soon to be passing train. It looked like it could be a long one. He hoped it would be another freight train and not a passenger train. A tornado of grinding steel came alongside of the boxcar. Gus sighted down the line; saw with relief that there were no window lights: it was a freight train. In a wind tunnel of noise Gus pushed the body out of the doorway. The Afrikaner landed in a heap in the graveled space between trains. Was that a groan? Gus jumped down, stumbled, righted himself; studied the Afrikaner. The man was dead. There was no pain, no cry of fear. Besides, the passing train was making too much noise for him to hear such a thing -- He dragged the body close to the steel wheels as they flashed by. With manic effort -- the wheels and the side of the train were feet from his head -- he sat the one-hundred-and-seventy pound dead weight up, legs out, with the man’s -- the boy’s -- back facing the passing train, head slumped over the legs. He raised the teenager’s head, looked directly into the remaining eye -- And shoved the body towards the slicing wheels in the same heartbeat he flung himself backwards -- He thought he heard in freeze-frame, a moment that would last a lifetime, a cry. Did he see a wink of panic in the man’s good eye just before the train obliterated the Afrikaner in an explosion of meat? Gus jerked, fell, possibly cried out -- he wasn’t sure -- stood up slowly and climbed woodenly back into the boxcar. It would be good if he had some dagga to smoke. Just the weed: what the Americans called pot. Just the weed. He did not want mandrax, the evil chemical concoction that some of the child soldiers and troops of UNITA and the MPLA smoked before going with the South Africans or Cubans into battle. It was this, some claimed, that led to the slaughter of women and children in villages like Camabatela, but it was other things as well. Maybe some dagga… He sat still long after the train was gone before he thought to clean up the teenager’s blood from the floor and to cover it with dirt and seed remnants, and some sort of dark powder from the boxcar’s previous cargoes. He wetted a rag and cleaned his bloody face, his clothes, fingers. There were pieces of the white man on his cheek, nose, hands, pieces of the teenager’s face and skull and brains. Was there a look of horror in the Afrikaner’s eye just before he went under the wheels? Gus grew light-headed, had trouble breathing -- Trembling, he viciously tore up what was left of the T-shirt. He fashioned the remaining material into a sort of semi-Kaffiyeh, an Arab headdress. He hid what was left of the bloody rag under the pallets. Sweating, cold, nauseous he regained his breath in shudders and sighs. He sat against the back wall of the boxcar and watched the African night as it passed by the yawning doorway, almost like the darkened images of a movie screen. There had been too much suffering and death in his ten years of war. Too much. God. Did he push a living man under the wheels of the train? He felt it as a dead weight of certainty, less as a translatable thought that he could measure, define or analyze, but as a sinking of hope. But, what else could he have done? What? A jagged pain pierced his heart; he sucked up an audible bubble of air. He gasped, stuttered: a choked sigh -- He broke down, a sliding scale of deepening and then wracking sobs… Augusta Otjikatjamuaha cried: For the dead man, for his family, for the slaughter, for the suffering of the people, for Angola, for Africa, and maybe for himself, in an invisible war, a war where the living were forgotten by the world even as they died.

Epilogue:

The Soviets and allies were forced out of Angola and southern Africa by 1991. Apartheid officially ended a year earlier in South West Africa when the South African controlled territory became The Republic of Namibia, a constitutional democracy. Apartheid ended by law in the Union of South Africa in 1992. Nelson Mandela, the black African President of the African National Congress, and F.W. DeKlerk, the white African president of South Africa, together won The Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their efforts in ending Apartheid in South Africa.

Resource rich Angola achieved a peace of sorts in 2002 after twenty-seven years of war and more than a million Angolans killed, in excess of four million displaced, and with millions more wounded and maimed.

“Gus Penduka” lives in Lewiston, Maine, with his wife and three children. His oldest child, a daughter, lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a teacher and a mother.. The African-American’s lone grandchild was named Herero, Herry for short. A good neighbor, a quiet man, Gus keeps his nightmares to himself. -end-

​Please give to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF/ United Nation's International Children's Fund: 125 Maiden Lane, NY, NY, 10038. 1-800-367-5437.

The sweaty air felt as thick as paint. Old memories twitched beneath the lost man's skin: he knew this heat. Crouched and alert, he crossed the road quickly and fled through a laurel portal into a lush, green cavern --

And the world changed. The oppressive tropical sun was gone and in its place was the cool dusk of the great woods. The cancerous sunlight could barely penetrate here. The soft air smelled of clean pine with only the hint of dead and rotting vegetation to force the truth alert.

A keen-eyed dog, a creature of its own intent but companion to the man, waited upslope. He stood in vigilant silence, a piece of the forest puzzle.

The friends followed a devious track that identified itself to the wild eye, a sight that looked with indigenous kinship at all things natural within the bush. An oblivious interloper would never achieve the trail or know its secrets. But, the two animals, canine and human, knew the trail well. They shared the track with the deer, the coyote, fox, bear, and the swarming black fly that uses all trails freely, both in a man’s nightmare and in the summer air.

In the sanctuary of the cool, secret shadows of the woods the lost man saw life as an honest gift that could be measured in the instant. Every breath a miracle. Every chirp or song muttered in passing, even by the wily crow, was a wondrous sonata Beethoven never matched. The waddle of a porcupine, quills undulating like a Kansas sea of grass, was an act of comic genius that orchestrated slapstick humor with every swayback step. The dreaded skunk could do what most big city shrinks can’t and propel the most determined, suicidal prospect, mangled by remorse and pain, to re-discover life if only for the fleeting instant when the skunk might raise its tail.

Life was in the moment -- the man believed that this was a secret of the woods. One moment was song and the other terror. One moment was birth and the next death. Every creature, great or small, was a part of that changing moment, even the most noxious, man and the black fly.

Grinning hugely, crouched, the dog slinked off the trail to lurk in ambush for the man. This was a game the two friends often played. They would stalk each other as quiet as foxes, pursuing the reward inherent in the chase -- the hunt, the ambush, and the love -- a natural circle of simple acts: around and around like a dog chasing its tail.

Around and around:

At the attack the man shrugged off his pack. He ducked and parried the leaping dog. He sprinted into the thick foliage with brush and branches tearing at bare legs and whipping across his face. He eluded. The dog chased. It was a game that wouldn't gain the man a Mercedes or the podium at the Elks Lodge but tired the man and dog in a happy way.

When the two continued their trek even the man was smiling.

It wasn’t until later when a fighter jet boomed overhead that the man's joy was stolen from his eyes. The streaking plane was an ugly reminder of all things evil. He frowned in memory, scowled with a concentrated hatred.

The two friends approached a highway.

Light shimmered through a break in the trees casting a mirage over the roadway asphalt. Inherent within this false creation was a vague hint of water. But, the man wasn't fooled. The highway was a human tool and not to be trusted.

The dog waited patiently by the side of the flaming blacktop. He wouldn’t cross a road so wide without his friend.

Inside of a black SUV, four men smoked and drank quickly --

The driver saw the dog; he tossed his burning butt out of the window, and said, "Watch this." With a flick of the steering wheel the truck swerved across the road and bore down on the dog.

The man's vision was hindered by a riotous explosion of branches; choked with green leaves in a jumbled and thick forest of tree after tree. Though he heard the truck he saw it too late -- when he did, he screamed in rage --

The dog leapt away from the road but too late to save his life.

But, it was his slight switch in direction that caused the truck, after absorbing the impact of striking the animal, to catch the soft sand footing on the highway's shoulder. The vehicle was sucked into a roadside ditch and rolled side-over-side for thirty meters, until it butted upside down against a beech tree, crumpled like a spent beer can.

Pulling a revolver from inside his pant waist, the man dropped his pack and sprinted to where the dog lay. The dog's back was bent unnaturally, his right foreleg was crushed, ribs were visible where jagged bone ruptured the soft skin, and blood seeped from the dog's nose and mouth.

“Jesus,” the man cried out.

The dying dog watched his friend through a jagged haze of pain. The lost man looked down at his friend and his eyes filled with tears. He crouched and stroked his friend's head. He said quietly, "Good Boy. I love you. I'm sorry."

The dog whimpered softly, so gently it was almost a sigh. Then, like soft fog blowing into a box canyon, his eyes clouded over in shock.

The man stood, cocked his weapon, and went to the truck. Diamonds of safety glass were strewn about the roadway, blinking obscenely in the insidious light. The truck's roof was crushed, and the enemy trapped. He felt a searing heat on the back of his neck and looked up: the corpulent sun squatted, frenzied and leering in a flaming sky.

His mind recoiled and stuttered.

Heartbeats passed:

He stared with a terrible hatred at the caged men and struggled to breathe as he sucked in the thick, meaty air.

He coughed.

His old T-shirt was soaked with sweat.

He coughed, again.

He felt on fire.

The passenger in the front seat was dead; his head twisted at an impossible angle, his blank eyes stared sightless at a day different from the last. The moans and whimpers of the other men grew in volume keeping pace with their recovering senses: a flashflood of blood exited jagged slashes as fast as human hearts could pump it.

The lost man had seen all this before.

The seeping smell of gasoline suddenly became stifling. Fuel sneaked into every cul-de-sac where it eagerly awaited ignition. A burning cigarette lay upon the highway just inches from the readying combustion. The man looked at the incendiary. He could have thrown the smoldering butt away but he didn't want to, and he would not.

The killer was impaled behind the steering wheel. There was the panicky heat of ebbing life in his eyes now. The lost man locked on the killer’s stare. The killer blinked back but recoiled when he saw the truth.

“Help -- helllp me!”

The man un-cocked his gun and tucked it back into a homemade holster in his belt line. He hurried away from the truck going to the dog. He gently picked up his friend and cradled him in his arms. He said soothingly and quietly, and finally, "Thank you. Thank you for -- for all of it. All that you did for me."

He carried the dog into the bush --

Piercing screams keyed a roaring explosion as the voracious fire sprouted into a small roadside hell. Metal, fabric, and flesh all burned together. The oppressive heat, the burning metal, the pleas of the dying, and the crippling loss of a friend, a comrade, a loved one, was known to the man, this was the memory that twitched beneath his skin, that lived in his heart, that sang him to a half-sleep with a chorus of pain every goddamn night, and then the next, and the next after that.

Stumbling, the man carried his friend carefully into the woods. On the ground, with ebbing life but with total trust the dog watched his friend through dimming sight. The man took the gun and aimed the barrel of the revolver at the back of the dog's head and gently fired a round into the innocent mind --

Sprayed by his friend's blood, the lost man cried out, shaken. He brushed manically with one hand at his red-splotched T-shirt and face.

The moment shifted again.

In a confusing, spiraling darkness of rage and memory, the lost man clawed out a shallow grave and buried the dog. Frenzied, he spread leaves, dead branches, and other debris over the site to hide it from enemies. He stood, looked around, donned his old army pack, grunted, and fled deep into the woods, keeping within the shade of the bush and out of the malignant sunlight.

The black flies were everywhere, swarming in nightmare patterns, crisscrossing and dive-bombing in a black mist. The pulsating, dark cloud of tiny insects engulfed the man. He tried to fight them off with flailing arms but it did no good, and he sucked the bugs into his lungs with each wracking breath of resistance. Like a piece of flotsam being dragged by a powerful current into the cataclysm of a waterfall, he edged closer and closer towards panic.

So, he acted: to confuse his enemies, he trotted in a figure eight around a hillock and through the dense foliage in, roughly, two-hundred-meter connecting ovals. He ended his maneuver in a cool, clean brook where he frenetically washed the blood from his shirt and face. He waded three hundred meters upstream staying in the middle of the knee-high water. While he found some calming purpose in escape, there was nowhere to go:

The dog was dead.

When the lost man stopped running the black flies caught up with him.

As legions of the swarming insects harried him, chewed on him, smothered him, he stood motionless, un-resisting, under a giant red oak. Through the thickening cloud of flies, he stared down at the blued-revolver in his hand.

The dog was dead.

Dead.

The flies were

everywhere.

The soldier put the gun to his head:

He pulled the trigger.

And the gunshot sounded in the great woods, echoing,

echoing,

echoing,

until it was gone and it was quiet again.

The man's moment was done. -end

​For those that have given all they had…​Please give to the Wounded Warrior Project, P.O. Box 758540, Topeka, Kansas, 66675/ 877-832-6997

Critique of the Sochi Olympics, Sort Of, and Earlier Events, Which Most Likely Didn’t Happen But Could Have -- Maybe -- Though Probably Not:By Kevin O’Kendley

Killing time before the Sochi Olympics, a sweeping cam, the eye of a peeping yet depressed god, pans over a snow-draped graveyard in Upstate New York …

Announcer: “What is this guys? Wha -- huh?”

Three men are walking abreast where only two can fit comfortably between the headstones:

We hear a female announcer’s disembodied yet sonorous words (sounds a little like Meredith Vierra); the trained and modulated voice speaks, “Hmmm? Three men are walking abreast where only two fit comfortably between the headstones,” which is accurate reporting, a portent of things to come in the Sochi Winter Olympics.

A male announcer-in-the-sky (who sounds a little bit like Bob Costas): “Yeah, well, what about the 11th toughest guy in the graveyard, Matt. See if you can dig him up and find out if he’s going to be in the, uh, the Men’s Giant Shalom -- if he is let’s interview him.”

Matt Lauer: “Shalom? Huh? Don’t you mean Slalom?

(Hey, it is) Bob Costas: “I do.” He nods wisely. “Sorry, I was reading the Old Testament this morning while I operated on a groundhog fixing a defective valve in his heart.”

Matt Lauer: “Wow Bob. Ever transplant the subliminal drive from a mole to a giraffe in order to dig under the English Channel? What the? Yowsa, grave’s empty. There’s a note, though.” Chuckle. “It reads: ‘I’m a Democrat running against Chris Christy in New Jersey be back soon.’”

Bob Costas: “Really? Huh? Hey, what about the 10th toughest guy in the graveyard?”

(It was) Meredith Vierra: Sound of distant crickets.

Matt: “Hey, there’s a headstone that reads: ‘Still working on the national debt.’”

Group laughter --

Cut to a spy cam searching the graveyard for the three men:

The fugitives have become terrified by unexplained voices popping out of dialogue balloons in midair. They flee in abject panic, yelling to each other as they scramble over headstones and each other, one man losing a cowboy hat from a bar in Fargo, North Dakota, another a nose stud from Knotts Berry Farm in California, and the third a T-shirt from the Gray Animal Farm in Maine.Meredith Vierra, Bob Costas, and Matt Lauer shrug in unison, bobbing kind of like a 70s Motown trio or the Russian rappers Putin and the Putineers.

Sound of distant crickets --

More crickets.

Warmed up, the newscasters take off for the winter Olympics in Sochi. Meredith, who is contacted over the radio by French President Francois Hollande for a date, pilots the cigarette boat. She has her international boat, jet, and acupuncture license.

The three amigos drink champagne all the way to Russia. The champagne bottles are biodegradable, tossed over the side with little notes in them but you’ll have to find a bottle before it biodegrades to read the messages. We know this because the International Association of Dry Cleaners tracks the crew by satellite. However, if the Int’l Assoc. of Dry Cleaners knows what is written on any or all notes they are not forthcoming. The Dry Cleaners, of course, are spying on Matt Lauer but are within their legal rights under the Patriot Act as “official representatives of the laundry business” because Matt is under suspicion of demanding “too much starch” in his shirts (even without collars) sans an adequate explanation or a note from a doctor.

The Sochi Winter Olympics prove to be immensely enjoyable, filled with grace, guts, and stamina, not only the result of years of hard work and training but gifted and incredible athleticism. The athletes are a pleasure to watch from opening ceremonies to closing gong. Bob, Matt, and Meredith do an excellent job in reporting these facts even though Bob has a bout of a kind of ocular illness which he apparently picks up on a golfing trip to Mars --

A spy cam suddenly cuts to three men in Hari Krishna robes standing in front of a gravestone in a snow-clad graveyard in another part of Sochi:

Darlene McTavish jumped in a cab: her twenty-two-year-old Harley was in the shop, she’d dropped it on an icy corner a week earlier; fortunately she hadn’t been injured but the bike had been pounded.

When the taxi glided to a stop in front of FitzGerald’s Grocery Emporium the cabbie said, "Six smackeroos."

To Darlene's surprise the meter was double-jointed or two-faced showing separate prices for males and females. The fare for women was $6.00 and the ticket for guys, $4.62. Darlene grumbled, "What the? Where in the Constitution does it"--

Missy? Darlene took a deep breath, a brilliant calming technique learned from her YWCA Lamaze lessons. Though mystified as to why it was cheaper for a man to ride in a cab than a woman Darlene still shelled out a fair tip: two bucks.

Inside Fitzy’s it was the same thing, the same inflammatory mystery lurked behind every price tag: milk was $4.00 for women and $3.08 for men, coffee $7.00 for women and $5.39 for men, and then the kicker, the final flipping insult, Tampons were $5.00 for women and $3.85 for men!

There are great and unfathomable mysteries in life; beyond that there is…

St. Elvis Day

By Kevin O’Kendley

Joe Zeiss wore one of those headlamps over a skullcap and a sweatshirt hood -- a Cabela’s rendering of a Kentucky coal miner. The frenetic reach of the lamp’s searing illumination was a jarring and dancing cage of sight that left him feeling claustrophobic and blind, everything within the pale of hard light was vibrant and visible but beyond the small orifice of the lamp’s constricted view there was a dark iron curtain hiding the rest of the real world. And, it was the rest of this world of ink-blot silhouettes, Stygian cavities, stalking vortexes, looming trees, creatures large and small, and flitting ghosts, which was what he wanted to see -- not just what lay in front of him on a path made by the feet of others.

When the headlamp was turned on he felt like a Hollywood searchlight stalking through the serene woods -- an invading virus in a healthy body. He preferred the natural order of the night as night was intended to be: dark.

So, he wore the headlight but rarely used it.

It was January 8th, cold, four, five below with a rascally breeze sneaking through the trees, just robust-enough to freeze his nose hairs. He was dressed in layers, and wore fingerless woolen gloves inside of mittens with a Ninja mask over his nose and mouth. New long johns feathered-out the worn spots in his ratty old snowsuit. He used good snowshoes with cleats to navigate the two-foot deep snow at three thousand feet. He’d already come a mile and he could feel the sweat bead and trickle on his chest.

There was a full moon at work passing in and out of slow moving clouds. The undulating ribbon of trail twisted, sank, and rose through the mountain forest. The white path glowed opaquely with an obvious definition within the borders of the dark woods. He thought: even if I was a backslider tracking God I couldn’t lose this trail --

Hmmm? I am a backslider: he snorted in self-derision.

He traveled quickly but not hurriedly. He had elected to go alone, leaving the noisy dogs at the cabin with his children, wife -- he wanted to hear the night, a mystical symphony he hardly ever listened to anymore.

It was St. Elvis Day, Elvis Presley’s birthday, when Eddie used to throw a party for friends, family. Joe was going to meet Eddie at the giant pine, just as he had for the past four years, now five.

Without intent, unbidden thoughts of vague and drifting images of vengeance invaded then swirled around his mind. He still thought of revenge in some form, whether camouflaged in other guise or stark and plain with honesty. Separate of cruel thoughts, his body moved well enough under the strain of an obvious limp along the path, a reasonably dependable machine, and he made good time.

He tunneled through a copse of young pines in a natural doorway to a clearing in dense firs --

A heart-quickening flutter of a mutating shadow on the snow drove hard over his --

Joe flinched: released from his anger-reverie, he stuttered-stepped, raised his arms in a defensive gesture before he could even think to know that it wasn’t necessary: it was only an owl caught between the moon and the earth.

The night bird was looking for smaller game and passed on.

Joe laughed: sure, he was small game but too big for the bird.

And, then he was there.

The Great Tree.

He stood before the red pine, as always he was awed by its size and strength, beauty and power as if he were seeing it for the first time. The ancient giant had been spared by some reason of chance (or purpose?) in a forest that had been harvested many times over the last centuries. The tree was more than two hundred feet high and six feet thick.

The pine survived woodland pests, man and fungus, for over three, four hundred years, maybe even longer, but to know for sure how old the tree was Joe would have to cut it down and count its interior rings, and then, of course, the knowledge wouldn’t matter.

Some things are better off left as mysteries: he smiled.

The massive creature rose into the inverted bowl of night, a gigantic sprawling shape of trunk and boughs and limbs and branches and clutching fingers dimly illuminated at strange angles by the bright moon. The moonshine seemed unnatural in its application against the tree, there were shadows where there shouldn’t be, lighted angles and planes where it seemed odd, and at times, there was a pulsating movement in the giant limbs that just couldn’t be attributed to the strength of such a slight and sneaky wind.

Joe put his hand on the tree. “Grandpa, how ya doin? -- Eddie here?” Of course the Penobscot wouldn’t be; he always came fashionably late, always after Joe arrived.

Eddie Horn saved Joe’s ass when they were kids, though Eddie used to say all he’d done was drag Joe a few miles. But, it had been more than ten two to four feet of snow -- but not until he set a compound fracture just above Joe’s knee.

Joe smiled as he remembered Eddie’s unfeigned humility.

There was a soft sucking sound, the moon disappeared behind the clouds again and it grew dark. Under the tree, within a mutating pool of blackness Eddie hailed Joe softly: “Hey, buddy. Waitin long?”

Joe was kind of like an oyster with a hard and rough shell housing a pearl so deep-deep-way-down-deep inside only one woman had been able to find it. But, Eddie was the guy the girls would notice, the one the wife beaters were jealous of. Eddie was broader, taller, and stronger than Joe; at six-four tall he was tall for a Penobscot, for any tribe. In the dark shadows Joe couldn’t see his friend’s face, saw only the dark shape of a man with a peculiar grace, apparent even as Eddie stood at ease beneath The Great Tree.

Joe smiled. “I got my zeppelin tied to the tree. Just climbed down the rope ladder.”

“Got you beat,” Eddie answered. “I used a matter transporter to get here; I’m too dignified to be climbin down ropes and trees -- I’m wearin a rented tux.”

The old friends chuckled, stepped towards each other and hugged, then patted each other on the back as men do, never quite comfortable touching others or being touched.

With both hands Eddie pushed Joe back to look at him, to witness his friend. “Good to see you, man,” he said with palpable feeling, empowering every word with meaning.

“Yeah, yep,” Joe said with equal emotion.

Eddie nodded, quiet for a moment, then: “Hey, you sell the twenty acres over in Williams Glen yet?”

“No not yet. Put in a road. Takes you to the river.”

“Good. Good. I’d like to see it sometime.” As an afterthought Eddie added, “Gonna build?”

“Naw. Didn’t work out.” Joe turned his head away.

“Too bad buddy, sounded like a nice place” --

Eddie placed an upright forefinger in front of his lips. He twitched his head and pointed with his nose into the dark. From a thick clutter of softwood trees three deer stepped on stage from behind a curtain of darkness. None had antlers, none were big, all were survivors of the recent hunting season, all now had to survive the winter, and so they were in the process of moving to lower elevations.

Joe froze and watched, straining in the dark to see. He’d hunted since he was a kid but Eddie never had. The Penobscot ended up a hardcore environmentalist and political lightning rod for a collection of those that didn’t like him, in some multi-national corporations, some large landowners, some in law enforcement -- even Fusion Centers -- and folks from a host of job descriptions in a network that persecuted him for years.

Disappearing in a crypt-like shadow, Eddie took a few noiseless steps towards the deer. Joe turned to see. The animals walked tentatively in his direction, unaware. But then, thirty yards downwind the animals caught the scent of man: ran, bounding into the black night in which they were superior to humans when all things were equal, though they never were.

“Beautiful,” Eddie said.

Joe nodded and smiled.

“Still have my old truck?” Eddie asked.

“Yep. Got it in the barn. Never drive it. Keep it in good shape.”

Eddie smiled softly, nodded.

They talked and with the first conversational pawns expended, the friends spent the next hour covering the mundane and the meaningful, which intertwined like death and grocery lists. They didn’t talk about the years of hell Eddie had suffered as a gang stalking target, harassed and tortured and pursued, but they talked of children, of relatives dead and alive, of old friends, of Eddie’s many ex-girlfriend’s and Joe’s head-strong wife, and if the world was nearing its final moments, as had been predicted for centuries, and for centuries before that. Neither did they talk of politics, or the weather, or riding lawnmowers, or plasma TVs. Though Eddie admitted he wouldn’t mind owning a riding lawnmower if it had a built-in plasma television and wet bar.

Joe smiled and claimed that he was thinking of inventing a radio alarm clock that: “Screams insults at you to wake you up, makes you coffee, reminds you who the latest U.S. Secretary of Commerce is -- gets it wrong -- then tells you ‘I love you’ before you leave for work. Y’know, so you don’t need to listen to talk radio at Rosie’s Cafe.”

Eddie chuckled, and asked the obvious next question, “Still writing?”

“Kind of,” Joe answered. “Just finished a couple of pieces -- nobody will print -- that violate the Universal Gang Stalking Edict: never write anything that states or implies anything that states or implies anything gang stalkers might not like stated or implied. Say that five times real fast” --

“Do I hear bitterness?” Eddie said, chuckling. “Get over it Joe, I did. Send the stuff to, uh, New York, they like derogatory implied statements there -- when’s the last time you been in a New York cab?”

Joe laughed.

“If you’re good you’ll work, if you’re not, you can live in the woods and be happy.”

“Good idea. Sheeesh Eddie, I don’t really want to write, anyway, I want to work in the sports department at Wal-Mart demonstratin candlepin bowling equipment to middle-aged women who need hands on help with their form.”

They both chuckled at the image.

Softly: “If you’re still pissed off about the past, move to Libya, marry sixty wives” --

“My enemies would resent me.”

“They already do.”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

They each smiled, quieted, stared at each other in the dark: the old familiar, childhood back-and-forth patter had them happy, relaxed, alive.

But, Joe spoiled the moment: he said, “I found Watkins. It took me a long time but I found him. In South Carolina.”

Eddie nodded, his smile gone, his laughing eyes suddenly tight. No one said anything for a drawn-out moment. In this span of silence the wind picked up. The clouds stampeded. The moon flashed in a kaleidoscope of light between rapid breaks in cloud cover, which seemed to pass too quickly to be natural.

“What are you goin to do?” Eddie asked tightly.

“I’m goin to kill him -- he thinks he’s safe cuz he lives in a big house.”

No one said anything, another long moment passed. The smaller trees were beginning to creak in the gathering wind. The breeze whispered and told old stories to the listening forest, then snapped and popped and grew meaner. Something was moving upslope, something big, maybe a bear, maybe a moose, maybe even a house from Kansas.

“He got kids?” Eddie asked.

“I don’t know -- you did.” Joe looked around. The calamitous noise was growing in volume. The rumbling cacophony climbed hard into the trees and then sank jaggedly through the snow driving spikes of sound into the frozen ground. “They cheated you, slandered you, tortured you, ruined your life -- they stole everything from you. Not one of those Klan bastards cared if you had a family.”

“You’ll take the chance?” Eddie said with his voice rising. “What about my kids? You’re all they have now.”

Joe reached for an insult but left it in the holster. He said, “They’re fine, they’ve got good mothers.”

“I won’t come back,” Eddie said.

The forest upheaval was like an earthquake now: the ground shook beneath Eddie’s feet as if God walked upon the earth looking for liars. Glancing around him nervously, yelling over the noise, Joe said, “Why? It’s for you. I’d be doin it for you.”

“No,” Eddie answered. He didn’t have to yell as his hard voice penetrated the storm of like a steel-jacketed bullet through human flesh. “It’s not for me. It’s for you. It’s over for me. Man you still have a life to live. You got my children and your own to take care of. You don’t have the right to kill Watkins -- he’s not worth it. He’s nothin.”

Eddie leaned towards his old friend. “Maybe so and someday he will. Joe, listen, Watkins is what he is.” He sighed, pausing. “Listen to me. I know. Watkins will never really know happiness, never know what it’s like to be content, not in this life or the next. He’s an evil man. He knows nothin important about life, nothin loving, feels no real joy, no brotherhood, no laughter, not really. He misses everything, even the obvious -- he doesn’t get it.” Eddie chuckled sourly. “Everything that happens to Watkins is somebody else’s fault. He’s a shallow reflection of what he wants to show the world -- You still have the chance for all of it, all of life. Let it go. Or, you’ll have nothin.”

The ground shook but the friends stood safe and firm, islands in the storm.

“Murderers!” Joe cried out with a hatred that washed away his humor and love of family in a searing red haze of the hunger for violence.

“Let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s over,” Eddie said softly, etching his words with wretched grief. “It’s all over now.”

The storm died.

The slight wind dawdled back.

And, all was calm.

Joe looked wonderingly around, at the tree, at his friend, his brother. The Maine woods, life, the mysteries of the night, and God, it was all there -- again -- he only had to look to see, and shut his mouth to hear.

Eddie sighed --

There was another sharp shift in the feel of the night, a jarring reel in the symphonic wind. Moonlight quickly expanded into the space beneath the tree pushing back the shadows and chasing away the dark. The clouds were gone and the sky was miraculously open to the stars.

Eddie shook his head and the moonlight shone full upon his ruined face. The bullet hole from temple to eye was ragged at the exit wound, almost neat at the entrance. The dried blood on the rented tux looked just as it did after their last St. Elvis Day party, five years past. Nothing about his appearance had changed from that night.

“I killed myself. What they did was in their nature -- it wasn’t even specific, not really even about me.” With both eyes, the ruined and the good, Eddie looked into his best friend’s eyes, and he said sadly, with grief gouging every word, “I pulled the trigger. Me. It was my call. Let it go.”

“I can’t,” Joe croaked.

Eddie said softly, sadly, “You’ll suffer in this life and the next if you don’t.” He held out a supplicating hand as he shuffled oddly, subtly floating, backward into the giant tree. “Let it go, for me, please. Let it go man.”

Then Eddie was gone, merged with the red pine, which fed upon his ashes that were spread by those that loved him and loved him still.

Joe said so softly that only The Great Tree could hear, “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

Within the pine, Eddie answered, softer still: “Your children will teach you.”

​A man isn’t defined by his testosterone levels but by things that are bigger than his Gonadotropic endeavors (even under a microscope of excuses) -- but, even so…

I Guess I’m Not A Mawtch-Ho Man

By Kevin O’Kendley

There’s a mystical and rambunctious band of really-really tough men, an ancient cabal, a secret society, a martial discipline called Mawtch-Ho. These guys are so tough they can chew up aluminum beer cans and poop out intricate metal art sculptures of phallic symbols dominating cowering naked women in spiked aluminum clogs. They even have secret tattoos on their penises: intricate mosaics that hide out during the day but bloom in the darkness of misdeeds at night illustrating the Homeric creations of jack-booted sperm kicking in doors, destroying typewriters and burning books, especially anything Pink. Legend has it these emblems of masculinity were carved with dull, rusty can-openers from undiscovered 1950s survival bunkers and then cauterized by Joe McCarthy Jr. Autographed Lighters, which retail for $19.99 (Made in China).

But, hey, it’s not good to generalize about Mawtch Ho Men:

For instance, one guy has a pix of Mona Lisa on his Peter Pan (sure she’s wearing studded boots and playing a skull and cross-bone-forced-air brass instrument but she is smiling). Another Mawtch-Ho Man has a picture of a sinister-looking Lionel train engineer (who looks a little like Little Orphan Annie’s Daddy Warbucks) covering his entire face but Lionel Trains aren’t particularly indicative of violent intent and so there is hope in that tattoo. Another has a tat that reads: Death Before Doing the Dishes (on his forearm) and that is cause for concern especially at Dove Dish Soap For Men’s Psychological Profile Studies of Soap Users.

I have a tattoo of a bassoon (not a buffoon or a baboon), which is a woodwind instrument (the bassoon not the buffoon or baboon), on my right bicep; and on my left this motto: Recycle. “Da leff fist is iron and the right one is stee-ell, if the left one don’t get ya the right one wee-elll” -- though Muhammad Ali probably didn’t mean that a tough guy could be kayoed by a woodwind instrument or responsible recycling intentions.

My martial art discipline is called Lamaze: breathe in, breathe out -- calm now -- breathe in, breathe out -- c’mon, push, push a little harder. Calm! I studied under my wife at the YWCA when she was pregnant (that didn’t sound right but it has a nice image).

The Mawtch-Ho Men have mastered the sneer-smirk-leer with a dry upper case chuckle. I have a lower case Barney Fife giggle that is so high pitched I can awaken dogs from five blocks away, so I can’t watch 30 Rock anywhere near the dog pound.

Breathe in, breathe out…

Push.

The Mawtch-Ho Men are famous from Milpitas to Lake Titicaca: they are even legends in Therownmynds (Olde Wales). These guys are so tough that when riding the hopper (bombs away) they actually use pumice or lava rock to, uh, hmmm, ah, finish up -- y’know, to clean up the Rumpish Gate. This was a stated fact in the Lady’s Home Journal Magazine (in the Know Your Old Man Section entitled Bathroom Blasphemies, 1987). But get this: in the bush the Mawtch-Ho men are such tough bastardos that they use pine cones to, uh, cleanse themselves; apparently the more brusque and ragged the cone the better. I can hardly write about this topic without shuddering and suffering involuntary sphincter wincing to the tune of The Volga Boatmen:

Yo-ho-heave-ho, yo-ho-heave-ho, yo-oh-heave-ho, yo-oh-heave-ho…

I use Charmin whenever I can, even outside in inclement weather. At worst -- if I absolutely have to -- I’ll use some newspapers (yesterday’s news not today’s -- I’m not going to use a paper and then expect someone else to read it, besides the resulting lamentation would be fairly predictable: “This paper is full of…”).

Before I got married, I told my wife, Sylvia Archimedes, “I never use pine cones or lava rock. Never will.”

I won’t eat pine cones now. I will not eat pine cones at any holistic food center, or any health food restaurant, or at home no matter how my wife prepares this delicacy -- no, sorry not even at Christmas. What I mean is that I don’t care if this debased food item is charbroiled, barbecued, or fricasseed: I won’t eat pine cones, period. Heck, because of the psychological trauma associated with what some Mahtch Ho Men use pine cones for I won’t even eat an artichoke --

It looks too much like a pine cone!

So: I guess I’m not a Mawtch-Ho man.

I have a Mawtch-Ho neighbor that looks a lot like a manly manful macho pine cone. In a recurring nightmare he taunts me as a giant pine cone gorgon who has nasty pine cone halitosis. He chases me up and down a spiral staircase on a double-decker London bus in Tijuana: he’s riding one of those little donkeys that are haphazardly painted like a sinister zebra. I’m dressed in one of those idiotic medical gowns with no fabric over my butt cheeks – a nightmare anyone would understand. He called the police after I told him about the nightmare.

The police chief is a Mawtch-Ho Man too.

I spent 18 days in jail for insulting my neighbor, supposedly threatening perspective cannibalism, and disrespecting Mawtcho-Ho Men in general (they are very sensitive or in other words they can dish it out but they can’t take it).

And, of course, there was no Charmin in the can. We only had access to single ply. It was coarse but adequate paper from Saudi Arabia made from petroleum products. The stuff had a pleasant picture of a camel on it. Real Mawtch- Ho men, however, had special privileges and so access to emery cloth and/or sand paper with a picture of an AK-47 on board. Unfortunately, because of my choice of toilet paper I was wearing women’s clothing by the time I was released.

I guess I’m not a Mawtch-Ho man.

I like to ride around in a golf cart over to the Loonkhed Country Club (the famous 21-hole course that was built by the famous Viking, Ingmar Johansson, ex-heavyweight champion of the world). Even though I lug a golf bag around with irons and woods sticking out of the top of the bag the paraphernalia are phonies, plastic heads that anyone can buy at Rite Aid so that you can confuse your neighbors as to your drinking habits (you can hide several six-packs in the bag). Anyway, I heard a great tale at the golf tee rental facility (I collect the used tees because they look like rocket ships and are fun to play with and to make space ship noises with -- pppuuuusssshhhhh). This HOMERIC and rapturous story was about a real TGIF (a Tough Guy in the Forest) and caught me by complete surprise though it absolutely amazed me, too.

Breathe in, breathe out…

Calm…

Carlton Shimmer was out in the wilderness -- Long Island maybe. He got mad at a three-thousand-year-old redwood tree (apparently the tree whistled at him on a very windy day). Anyway, Shimmer beat the tree up but it fell on him or more exactly the giant tree fell on his leg. This proved slightly problematic for the Mawtch-Ho man but not for long!

Luckily, Shimmer had a pair of nail clippers. So, he cut his leg off. But, before he accomplished this Homeric feat, he did this: he braided a sturdy rope out of nose hairs, bark, pine needles, and some fishing line he had in his pocket so as to make a tourniquet. He then snipped off his leg -- did his toe nails on his good leg and the fingernails on each hand first -- and then tied off his stump like a Knockwurst (this alerted him to the fact that he hadn’t eaten for seven days).

I could never have cut off my leg with clippers, chew through it, or even hack it off with a dull wit. Nope, I would have waited until I was delirious, dreamed up a bottle of Jack Daniels, got drunk, and then summoned a radiant beauty in full maid regalia and gone out relatively happy.

But, of course, I don’t Shimmer.

Once free to move around, Shimmer, the sage and wise Mawtch-Ho survivalist took advantage of nature’s ready abundance:

He dug his severed leg out from under the tree with a shovel he made from a rock, a stick, some chewing gum, and a real shovel that he found in a nearby tire dump. It was spring, so there was still some ice in Hardezz Creek (also named by the Great Viking Johansson). Shimmer packed his bad leg in brook ice and stored it away in a back pack he made out of seventeen squirrels he captured, using an ultrasonic knockout device that he just happened to have with him, and then skinned the critters, using a defoliant made out of moss and a can of paint thinner he found in the brook. He removed the squirrels’ fur but left them alive. Shimmer figured that it was spring and it was warming up nicely -- the rodents would have enough time to grow back all of their hair by the coming winter -- which I’ll admit was a thoughtful touch. Shimmer stitched the hides together using Boston Ferns, a Robin’s nest, and some wire he also found at the tire dump.

He then hopped twenty miles to town on his good leg. He beat a passing freight train to the town line, actually outran it on one leg, though it was close. The train was only going 60 mph.

Once in town Shimmer had to stop to help a little old lady cross a busy street (some jerk in ’a 66 Lincoln Continental sped through the crosswalk but Shimmer got his plate number and gave it to the police). In gratitude the old lady offered to buy Shimmer a drink (and the police chief gave Shimmer a big award for bravery). Anyway: still carrying the elderly woman, Shimmer stopped at Fred McMurray’s Scottish Bistro at Fourth and Rye. Yes -- of course -- the Mawtch-Ho man bought a round for everyone in the joint. He wouldn’t let the little old lady pay, either. He then hopped five miles to the hospital refusing a ride from a married woman (not the same woman but a younger one with a quizzical expression painted on her face) because “it wouldn’t look right to the neighbors.”

He waited in line in the emergency room but let a little boy with a bloody nose go ahead of him, and then a woman that had a hangnail, and finally a Porgy with a hyper-extended dew claw.

Shimmer loved dew claws.

In the operating room Shimmer helped the doctors reattach his leg (he did some of the stitching himself). He also advised the lead surgeon -- in a pleasant but not in a pushy way -- on what sort of tile and grout the hospital might use to better create a “more anti-septic and psychological uplifting operating theater.” Though he was a “little disappointed” in the practical design of the operating room he remained patient and polite throughout the successful operation to reattach his limb, and never complained even when -- at first -- the doctors tried to reattach his leg to the back of his neck. They had gotten the wrong medical chart out of Shimmer’s back pocket, which was actually the medical chart for Shimmer’s yak, but Shimmer straightened the doctors out politely (yet firmly).

He answered: “Yes I do,” and winked at her. She became his second wife.

Not too long after all this heroism, Shimmer became governor of the Banana and Harley Davidson State propelled in no small part by this catchy ditty sung to the tune of The William Tell Overture: Let’s Shine with Shimmer and GetRid of the Hayes (his opponent). Yes, it was good word play but with a better beat. Shimmer recorded this song and within three weeks it became the number one pop song on the national Burgermeister Beer Billboard Top One Hundred and Two Hits.

Because the Mawtch-Ho man (Shimmer) was married to two different women he became a pioneer of sorts, and after he was sworn in bigamy became the law of the land, which garnered him even more votes, primarily male.

I broke my leg once and set it myself. The doctor told me that I did one helluva job too. “Of course,” he added, “you know the leg isn’t broken don’t you.” Huh? Turns out I had a rock in my shoe and after 7 beers and two shots of bourbon I misdiagnosed my injury. However, it was good to know that I’d administered a good splint for the wrong problem, which seemed better to me than if it had been a bad splint for the right problem. So, I vaguely felt ahead of the game, sort of --

Though, I guess, I still wasn’t a real Mawtch-Ho man.

If I’d only have emptied out the shoe I might have qualified for not becoming “a complete idiot” as well. But, I’m only human and certainly not on par with any of the Mawtch-Ho men who are god-like. Ask them -- they’ll tell you:

God was created in their image.

Wow.

This “fact,” however, scared me so much that I retired to a monastery in Greece for several years to study the history of stained glass windows in ancient Macedonia. It turns out there weren’t any but my studies weren’t a complete waste of time as I learned how the first Swanson TV Dinners were made in Yugoslavia under the Tito regime. It was breathtaking information, especially the part about the peas. Unfortunately, it was a tough monastery with a lot of Spartans in it. When I got out I was dressed like a woman, again.

Heck, I still wasn’t a Mawtch-Ho man.

Before I could get to Thermopolae to head off the Persians, my old friends from Miles City, Montana, Millie and Stepford Persian -- we were originally supposed to meet at the Parthenon in Athens where the old Horny Stables once stood (wherein the unicorns were sacrificed to the god of garden hoses and receptacles) -- but before I could change into more manly attire I spotted Governor Shimmer, of all people.

Shimmer was sight-seeing and had stopped to pick up a tour bus with one hand while he changed a flat tire with the other. His reattached leg was robust and vigorous by then. The governor was wearing marble bag bathing trunks that showed off his groin and a tank top with this written on it: Real Men Wear the Marble Bag Bathing Suits inthe Family.

He had a gym bag full of pine cones with him.

Stunned by his HERCULEAN presence I weakly asked him this: “What’s a real man doing in Greece?” I was then beaten up by several very pleasant Greek women who thought I was insulting Greek manhood. But I wasn’t. I was actually wondering why a Mawtch-Ho man was on a vacation -- I didn’t know those guys ever took holidays, especially visits to the cradle of democracy. So, I kind of phrased the question wrong (and paid the price), though I meant no harm or offense.

One of the Greek ladies, a cheerful looking sixty-year-old real estate agent and skeet shooting expert, told me that she wouldn’t have beaten me up except for the fact that she had mistaken me for a Romanian woman. See: if they thought I was an actual man, or even if I seemed as if I were, they would have left me alone and some old guy named Ulysses (who sweeps up shorn hair at a nearby barbershop and once wrote something about his being lost at sea for twenty years) would have beaten me up.

Anyway, Governor Shimmer told me this: “I had to get out of the States for a while. A week, two weeks. I needed a vacation for the mind and spirit.” He took a deep breath but looked shaken. He then sighed and said slowly and in obvious agony, “Ma’m, I, uh, I, er, heard that there were some transgender truck drivers operating long-haul rigs -- driving all night -- in Nevada or Utah -- I was absolutely crestfallen by this. So, I decided to go to Europe and see whole societies filled with effeminate men -- y’know so I could try and understand it all. I had to learn (he almost wept here) to forgive such a thing, so that I might regain my sense of moral rectitude and forbearance.”

Hmmmm?

“Don’t let those Greek women over there hear you say anything bad about Greek men,” I advised him. “They’ll beat the piss out of you.”

He smiled patiently but with rancid disbelief: “Okay ma’m.”

Shimmer was very polite to ladies.

Sometimes in trying to be honest unforeseen pitfalls can swallow the unwary. In fact, sometimes one must use wisdom in what one says and at least utilize common sense, be discreet, and not blurt out too much inflammatory or hard-to-believe information all at once, especially if it involves space aliens or talking fire hydrants. Unfortunately, I’m not known for my common sense, and so I said this: “I’m actually a man not a woman -- I love women though. Uh, ah, those tough Greek monks dressed me up in women’s clothing as a joke.”

Shimmer groaned and got sick.

I left him there by the tour bus suffering with shuddering heaves while I went in search of male clothing (before I went to Thermopolae to head off the Persians).

When I got back to America curiosity struck. So, I looked into this transgender long-haul truck-driving craze that Governor Shimmer claimed was “rumored to be” going on in some western states. I found out that yes it absolutely was a rumor or not true by any means that I had of determining the facts. But, it gave me an idea and so I wrote a terse yet somewhat poetic novel about this fictional, transgender, truck-driving phenomena. I called it: THEY DRIVE BY NIGHTIE.*

It was a big hit.

The Ayatollahs in Iran published the book because Iran is the Home of the Aryans, quite literally, and so some of the clergy there often feel a need to belittle American transgender truck drivers (because we’re a melting pot) even if there aren’t many transgender truck drivers, or at least none that I could find or that would go on record or participate in my book.

But, any rumor that’s good enough for Governor Shimmer is good enough for the Ayatollahs: take that ridiculous crap about there having been no Holocaust for instance.

Another BIG TIME book reviewer wrote this about my novel: “Whoever wrote this book isn’t a real man.”

But, America is the land of opportunity and I persevered:

The heavyset Spartan abbot in the Greek Monastery and, of course, Kramer on the Jerry Seinfeld Show gave me this idea: a man-bra. The Mawtch-Ho men provided me with the special ingredient: camouflage. I then designed the first CAMO MAN BRA, for guys that jiggle too much in the bush (it is a known fact that if you jiggle too much you can’t sneak up on anything that isn’t already dead and you can’t successfully hide from a lion or even fellow campers at a Bigfoot Jamboree).

I offered both the traditional camo and office supply, equipment, and furniturecamouflage so that some real men could hide in plain sight in their work places wearing nothing but underwear and man-bras.

Finally success: someone in the New York Times financial section wrote this: “The guy who invented the Camo Man Bra (“the manly bra that camo”) for survivalists and othersthat jiggle in the bush too much has truly provided this country with a piece of functional art that is important both as a comfortable clothing item and as a statement that not all men that wear man bras are sissies.”

But, Governor Shimmer wrote this in rebuttal: “Real men don’t work for the New York Times.”

Hmmmm?

Yeah, well, don’t say that in Brooklyn Governor Shimmer, there are Greek women there too, and I should know because I married one.

Anyway: it was obvious that I still wasn’t a real man to the Mawtch-Ho men. However, because of the CAMO MAN BRA for real men and my incredibly successful bumper sticker and spin-off T-Shirt, My husband’s boobs are bigger than your wife’s, and finally the follow-up movie, HOW THE MAN BRA DESTROYED THE TALIBAN, I am not hurting financially.

I’m not rich, not poor, but somewhere in between, a member of that endangered species the American middle-class -- so I’m always looking in the rear-view mirror alert to falling anvils and trucks filled with artichokes that might be gaining on me.

In any case, even though I’ll never measure up as a real Mawtch-Ho man, I married a beautiful Greek-American woman from Flatbush. I don’t browbeat myself or suffer the forced image of my betters, and I no longer think or have nightmares about the Mawtch-Ho men wiping their behinds with pine cones while snipping off their legs with nail clippers and then turning to me to say: “You’re next fella.”

And, as my wife often says: “We can’t all be MAWTCH-HO MEN, sweetie.”

Amen, Sylvia. And, thank all the saints in heaven for your wisdom -- hey, what kind of knucklehead wants to use lava rocks or pine cones to wipe his keester anyway?

Moon Over Reno by Kevin O’KendleyChapter 1 (Summer of 1939 app. late July)

Every time the frigging saloon door opened a Pacific gust shuffled cigarette clouds into smoke signals. During my lunch hour, plus er-ah twenty-two minutes of my boss’s time, I tried to read this secret code but no luck -- There was an ant on the bar top. Not someone married to an uncle but a bug with antlers. While it was true I didn’t like cockroaches I was okay with ants. I read somewhere once that an ant could lift twenty times its own body weight. So, I moved my beer stein a foot over just in case. Why? Because I’m a freaking private eye and I’m paid to be “objectively” paranoid. George Papathakis shook his newspaper, growled softly, and said, “That gee in India, Ghandi, ah, sent Hitler a letter askin for peace -- let’s see, ‘for the sake of humanity.’ Gotta admire Ghandi -- even with that funny hat. Hitler won’t go for it though -- fanny hole. Brother what a mustache.” “Yep,” I chuckled: Gotta admire a man like Ghandi. “Yessirreebob.” I squinted, suddenly looked smart -- maybe -- chain-lit a Lucky from a smoldering butt, and took a deep drag in smoky contemplation. Ahhhhhhh… The lunch shift was about over for all hands except for Alf the dishwasher; things were getting tougher for him. I could almost hear him cussing way back there in the kitchen. Behind the bar, Big Jimmy studiously wiped every nook and cranny including his forehead using a dishrag; he whistled along with Woody Herman’s Who Dat Up Dere Who Say Who Dat playing on the jukebox. When the music stopped Jimmy said, just loud enough with that Mickey Rooney voice of his, “Five plays for a nickel you mugs -- don’t be cheap.” The big mick motioned to the jukebox at the back wall with his noggin; then surveyed his territorial responsibilities with his peepers, including a dozen customers chasing the last seconds of their lunch-hour ahead of their beers, kind of like Jesse Owens when he kicked Nazi fannies all over the ‘36 Olympics in Berlin. Physically Toal’s Stable was just a hair claustrophobic but emotionally it was a large and airy respite from certain particulars in life. Inside it was cool on hot days, and it was a hot day. From an open shaft in the cellar next to the ice chute, a big fan blew subterranean air through the open heating grates into the upstairs bar, clinking and creaking while it worked. On the cracked plaster walls there were pictures of race horses, local fighters going back to James Corbett and Joe Choynski, a black and white shot of Benny Leonard vs. Whirling Willie Behan, shots of the 1906 Earthquake and subsequent devastation, Mexican bandits including Emile Zapata and the Cisco Kid, autographed photos of Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain, portraits of Mae West and Lana Turner, an obtuse painting of Oakland because that was where the owner was from, the recent additions to world architecture the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, and a large portrait of China Town’s Grant Street, etc. The beat up old ceiling had recently been re-plastered which allowed the regulars to enjoy a beer without fearing a cave in. The walls hadn’t been painted since Teddy Roosevelt was vice-president which was reassuring for the mugs who didn’t want the world to change too much, too soon. Though, it was mainly a white man’s joint there were Chinamen, coloreds, Mexicans, and other representatives of San Francisco’s melting pot. Paddy Toal, the owner, a retired flat foot, didn’t draw the race line on either side of the bar. Even dames were welcome, though few ventured inside or stayed too long. Overlooking a multi-paned window staring out at Market Street, a gee in overalls with dark purple saddle bags under each peeper, cooed, “Ain’t that kid, er, uh, cute.” It sounded as if someone had dumped a load of gravel in the lug’s throat then piped up some heavy wind using industrial bellows. Some other mugs from the Embarcadero -- tanned pans, ropey types -- were passing a little tiny baby around when a nice looking frail walked by the window -- her hair was up in a pine cone sort of thing -- saw the baby, slowed, seemed stricken, and quickly moved on. A trolley chattered by just after she did; then, “clang clang, clang,” it went, and the lady was gone, though other folks soon passed by and other trolleys too. The gee in overalls chuckled, “I ain’t never seen a baby, uh, in person before” -- “Aw g’wan,” another mug laughed -- “It’s true. In the movies. Magazines. But never, uh, in real life.” “Me either,” a half-ton cherub concurred. He added, smiling, “And I’m forty-two.” This sent some laughter bouncing around the saloon, though it was hit and miss with the clientele, forty-two being a speculative age for some. “What’s with the bambino?” I asked Maurice the colored barkeep, the last man standing behind the bar top after Big Jimmy hung up his apron. During the peak of the lunch rush the bartenders worked the bar like synchronized Vaudeville dancers never getting in each other’s way. They were Saturday night legends up and down Market Street and were known to some as far away as San Jose. In staccato, the ex-middleweight answered, “Headlock Chuck’s kid. Just got her a couple of months ago. The mother works over at, ah, some seafood place around Pier 38.” “Holy moly, the gee’s gotta fix the kid, uh, the diapers on his own?” I asked mostly serious -- I wouldn’t have been able to have handled it. “All alone,” Maurice gave his noggin a quick shake up and down. He tried to smile through those ex-pug slits of his but the laughter was in his eyes, not so much in his tribe of scars. “Tough,” I said, and meant it. “You can say that again Moon Man. I seen him the other day changin a freakin diaper -- it was absolutely disgustin. Crap everywhere.” “In here?” I asked. I could barely rap my mind around the newsflash -- it was staggering, a mug changing a diaper in a saloon. What next? George shook his paper again: ruffle-ruffle ruffle. “Some idiot painted ‘Roosevelt’s the anti-Christ’ on the side of a van in front of the White House -- the picture’s in the Chronicle.” The skinny ex-miler in a bowtie, his mitts flying at two and seven, shook his head. “They’re sure gettin tough on the president, huh?” One of the mug’s by the window said, “How do you know they don’t mean Eleanor?” -- “He changed the kid’s diaper in a saloon?” I asked, unable to leave such bizarre circumstances behind. Changing a kid’s diaper in a frigging saloon? “He did. No lie. He did.” Maurice and I looked at each other, dumbfounded with half-grins prepared to go in either direction: disbelief or justification. George, cabby extraordinaire, shook the paper again but even harder this time, kind of like autumn leaves in a dust devil. “Says here some nut figures we’re gonna have electrical umpires in the future -- electrical umpires in baseball. Diagram right here in the paper. Says that this job can’t be left up to human beans. What a crocka”-- he coughed jaggedly, and then again. George was a little league and a track coach, even when he was coughing up mustard gas left over in his lungs from the Great War -- The War to End All Wars. Hmmm? The ant was swimming in my beer. I rescued him with a pinkie finger and set him down on the bar top. The little fella shook himself off, more-or-less, and moved crab-like but patiently towards some crumbs of pickled eggs and crackers or what was left of my lunch -- Now I was hungry again -- Huh? Doolin was suddenly at my elbow: Geez Louise, every time I saw that mug sneaking around I got the creeps. He was a private dick and worked at Moon and Mullins, the porta-potty kings, or rather the evolving detective agency. Doolin had until recently been a hard-nosed San Francisco copper -- Maurice was a hard-nosed but clean ex-con. The four peepers, blue and brown, did kind of a square dance but there was no palaver between the two men. They were learning to get along, I guess. It was interesting though: Maurice with his conked noggin and Doolin with his clerical comb-over, both on their best behavior. The two gees always seemed just seconds away from a Donnybrook that I would have paid good dough to watch. Oh yeah: I was the boss at Moon and Mullins but only because I was in Mr. Melmar’s building before Mrs. Mullins was. “I’m getting married,” Doolin said. Nobody had a thing to say to that. Personally, I was, uh, poleaxed. Then: Maurice handed Doolin a ceegar. And, I was there to see it. Doolin and Mauricesitting in a tree. Yowsa brother. I had to bite my lower lip. Of course that meant that Doolin was marrying Mabel, a frail that was both my mental and physical superior. In my imagination, I saw her in the next Olympics doing a Babe Didrickson before I saw her marrying Doolin but that’s life -- amazing, huh? She was a sweetheart and Doolin a weisenheimer, what a shame. “Hey, uh, Moon,” Doolin said, “you’re wanted back at the office.” Luis, the cook, a broad-backed Hawaiian, stuck his head out of bat-wing doors, and yelled, “Moon. Phone. Mabel.” I was getting it on two fronts. “Mabel,” Doolin said, softly, dreamily -- I shook my head in wonder, went into the kitchen, grabbed the phone, talked to Mabes for a minute or two, came back, finished my beer in one swallow, looked over at Doolin, and said, “The weddin’s off. Mabel just met Jimmy Durante.” “That’s a good one Moon -- so good I forgot to laugh.” Maurice kept a straight face. George shook his paper like a banana tree in a gale. “Says here, ah, er, some folks from Philly smuggled fifty Jewish kids outta Austria. Kids are safe and sound in the City by the Golden Gate. Huh? Imagine that.” Fifty kids the Nazis won’t get now, I thought. I gave George a two-fingered salute James Cagney style. “Gotta go -- take it easy brother.” I grabbed my hat, tipped Maurice two bits, and headed for the door. Doolin was out before me and gone, hoofing it back to Mabel -- Wow, that mug could move when he wanted to. On Market there were a couple of panhandlers, shuffling by, tired, asking strangers for dough. Times were still plenty tough in the summer of 1939 no matter what Mortimer Snerd or Governor Culbert Olson said on the radio. I didn’t like the fishy look one of the mugs gave me. He looked like a purse snatcher. The other gee stared at me, pop eyed, flat lip line on a sorrowful pan, and asked me silently for nothing but everything. That got to me: I almost handed over two Buffalo heads. Heck, I was doing better financially with all the very recent changes in my life but still the Moon and Mullins accountant in me just about bust a gut. Ten cents? Who the hell did I think I was? Daddy Warbucks?I kept the dough. At the corner a twelve-year-old newsie in a cloth cap was hawking the morning paper, The Chronicle. Later in the afternoon he’d be on the same “corner” selling the news but by then it would be the Examiner. Tough kid, he’d captured and held his territory for about a year. He ate in Toal’s every now and then, probably whenever he had the green stuff. “Hitler says Poland’s safe,” the kid yelled. “Hitler says Poland’s” -- “Mikey,” I burped, “Paper.” I handed the ragamuffin in the cloth cap a nickel and he slapped a paper into my hand. “Good readin Mr. Moon. Check out The Phantom, he gives the bum’s rush to a bunch of pirates.” I smiled and tapped my fedora. Mikey was a fatherless kid wearing his shoe leather raw to earn a buck. His mother depended on him to eat regular and he did all he could not to let her down. Heck, he should have been in school but there he was hawking papers. “How’s your mother?” I asked. He looked away. “Good,” he said losing an octave of pep. I could hear wafts of Spanish, Mandarin, Italian, laughter, and other things San Franciscan all around me. Some mug was yelling at his wife in drunkenese. Working stiffs in hard hats, frails with purses, office mugs in ties, approached and passed the kid but he was no island, people knew him, smiled, some said hello. “Hitler says Poland’s safe,” the kid cried out in his newsboy voice, even though Hitler’s army had just paraded down the streets of Prague with no one there to stop them. An unwanted picture, a flash popped in my old melon: I saw Spanish bodies heaped in a pile with nobody in them.The Spanish knew the Nazis, too. Heck, there wasn’t a frigging bookie operating north or south of Market that would take an even bet that Hitler wouldn’t invade Poland or Russia before Thanksgiving. But bookies don’t run countries they just bet on their demise. It was hot for The City. Gusty slash breezy. I pulled my hat down, gritted my loins, and stepped back into the melee. I saw Mary striding down Market Street on long, long, longer legs. She was wearing that luminescent smile I was getting to know. Maybe she was ready to say something that I’d have to think about for a day to really understand or something that would give me a chance to laugh off a bad day. Instead, she gave me a hug -- we’d come that far in a month -- stepped back and looked me up and down with me in my spit-shined brogans, suspenders, blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves, Stetson, but no gat -- well, I kept a small revolver in an ankle holster but she didn’t know that. “Your grandma would be proud of you Moon.” See: I was catching on to her wiles. Now I was supposed to ask her why my grandma would be proud of me and she’d smile and let me know I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was. Of course, my Polish grandma was dead, so Mary’s stratagem worked on many different floors with me -- Right on cue three swabbies sauntered by in their summer whites giving Mary a microscopic once over. I smiled sort of, uh, maybe. The sailors looked like I did once. I’d shipped out at sixteen because my grandma couldn’t feed me and for a few other reasons too. So, the Navy fattened me up and my grandma through me. I was a brown-water topside China hand before the Wall Street crash. Mary was dressed simply but with her it was a statement on her “freedom from restricting convention” -- brother the palaver on that dame. She had a purse not unlike a Pony Express Mail Bag including a Sam Browne strap hanging over a shoulder. It was hot out, so she was comfortable right down to her canvas boat shoes. She wore little makeup as far as I could tell. Her light brown hair hung to her shoulders with an Andrew Sisters’ shimmy and shake. She looked around with inquisitiveness and appreciation, and often smiled as a result. Huh? Her bosom would cross the finish line ahead of her nose but it was her eyes that would win the race -- Snap out of it Moon -- watch out for flying farmhouses. Before I met Mary -- out at the Marina -- I was kind of grumpy, busted up, having finished a sad but rough case on top of all the rest of the doghouse stuff in my life. So I was passing plenty of ax murderers on the street at the time. After Mary, I was a little less busted up and so passed fewer ax murderers on the same street. Huh? What if? -- As we walked up Market I decided to explore this new perspective. So I looked around: That gee over there ain’t an ax murderer, right? That mug ain’t. That dame she’s not, that gee -- well he might be -- and those two mugs over there, huh? they might be, too. That crook -- oh yeah, he’s an ax murderer. Well, so much for that. Maybe I hadn’t changed as much as I thought I had but it wasn’t Mary’s fault, she was working on it. We turned the corner at 7th Street, crossed over McAlister, and headed up Leavenworth to the office. What we found was like a Pathe Newsreel and it unfolded in broad daylight even as we watched: There was a copper buttons calming things down. Rico Melmar was trying to nab invisible hummingbirds out of the air -- his hands were going a mile a minute. Truckee Mullins had the reins of a horse and was trying to pull Trigger’s brother off the sidewalk, making Roy Roger clucking sounds. Mary and I stood near a sedan; a frail with cupid lips and swan-in-flight eyebrows was beeping the car horn. A gee in a striped bowtie had his head out the window of a Ford and was trying to park in the only open space in sight or right where Truck was pulling the nag, seventeen hands high if an inch. A couple of mugs upwind from the action were clapping and hoo-rawing and laughing it up. It was quite a show, Barnum and Bailey in the Tenderloin. Someone across the street yelled, “I got the saddle,” and that’s when I noticed the horse had no saddle, you know being a detective and all. “He does have a saddle Moon,” Mary smiled. There was absolutely nothing to say to that so I said, “Yes he does have a saddle Mary.” As he passed by some somber mug with a carnation in his lapel, whistling a show tune, said to us, “Been there, done that.” Mary and I laughed at that one. The calamitous street theater stopped for one of those Life Magazine photos-in-time as two colored men with exotic designs and stuff all over their flowing robes stepped out of Melmar’s building. One gee was short and slim and the other taller than any man I’d ever seen from Toledo, Ohio, to Toledo, Spain, traveling in any direction you like. Brother it was a show stopper: A strange sight even for the Tenderloin. Then: boom, boom, boom, boom from somewhere off in the distance, maybe east, maybe south, not gunshots but explosions, massive ones. I remember hearing the horse whinny: Funny what a mug remembers when important things blow up.

In a dense copse of trees in Golden Gate Park the Gulag family was dressed in camouflage, boots, hats, gloves, and they had their faces painted with autumn colors.The camouflaged sniper nest bristled with rifles poking out of gun slots, a Chinese Type 56 for Mama, a Chinese Type 63 for little Daisy, a tried and true old-timer-SKS for Junior, and an AKM for Father -- all weapons were on fully auto.

The AKM was Father’s favorite gun.He absolutely loved the weapon.The original AK-47 had a solid metal receiver but the AKM used steel stampings (recognized by a small dimple in the receiver) and though the weapons were nearly identical father had no patience for anyone that couldn’t tell the difference at a moment’s glance.

The family had plenty of 7.62x39 (Russian) ammo because everyone’s weapon used the same rounds, which was “good business savvy” Father claimed.He bought his materiel in bulk and directly from the seller, an ancient Iranian immigrant with “connections” in the old country.However, this business arrangement had been nearly severed when the old nut had insolently insisted that Iran meant “the place of the Aryans” in ancient Persian, or some crazy crap like that.Heck, father almost blew the guy’s freaking brains out.The Gulag family were Aryans not the freakin Iranians.

Down in the park clearing, where the family had trained environmentalists over the summer to return to the same spot to pick up free copies of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, Honest Abe’s Gettysburg Address, JFK’s Profiles in Courage, Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream, Ronald Reagan’s Tear Down That Wall Mr. Gorbachev, etc. (scientifically referred to as bait), were two silhouettes walking abreast in the early afternoon fog.

Lordy, lordy, it seemed that all of the family’s hard work was about to pay off on their very first day of environmentalist baiting and terrorizing in Golden Gate Park.

“Lock and load,” Junior said.

But Father answered in a low, secretive voice, “Shhhh.Be sure of your target. We’ve spent a lot of money from stolen credit cards to come this far.”

“Honey?” Mama asked a little too loudly.“Honey?”

“Shush.And, don’t call me honey when we’re in the spy fort,” Father hissed.

“Yeah,” Junior chimed in urgently, “call him Colonel, mom, like we do at the Super Secret Brigade’s Headquarters in the cellar of Madam Hogwart’s Lacy Underwear Emporium.”

“Are they one of ours?” Father asked in a stage whisper.A half-dozen officers on the local police force were members of the Super Secret Brigade and the Super Double Secret Brigade, which was a secret group inside of a secret group, kind of like an enema inside of an enema -- huh? -- or was that an enigma inside of an enigma?

Sure enough, the sharp-eyed eight-year-old was right.It was two San Francisco police officers.While they were not Super Secret Brigade Soldiers, they weren’t demonstrably recycling or picking up returnable bottles either so they weren't obvious political enemies, but any cop on The Job could be a problem --

“That’s why this is such a difficult sport,” Father Gulag said quickly.“One must know ones target. And,” he smiled softly, “that’s why it’s a family sport.”He patted Daisy on the head, and added, “Good girl.”

Daisy smiled and panted.

“You know,” Mother said, “Rush Limbaugh told all of us that we don’t need spy gear and terror tactics to successfully defeat environmentalists, we can do it through the voting booth, he” --

“Rush Limbaugh is an environmentalist, and a liberal, and a femi-Nazi.”

Mother, hesitated, possibly having a hard time digesting this particular piece of news, but spoke her mind anyway:“Rush is a conservative Republican, dear.”

“That’s what I said: he’s a liberal environmentalist.”

“Oh.Uh, dear” --

“Shush will you.”

But, mother dared this next part: “G. Gordon Liddy said that you should buy American weapons and American ammo, not the same stuff Ho Chi Minh and Che Quevara used.”

“Sheeesh!Gimme a break.”Father rolled his eyes.“Capitalism is about honest competition and the best buy for the money.Who cares where the crap comes from.”

“Well: Glen Beck said” --

“Glen Beck wears his heart on his sleeve, he’s too sensitive -- he doesn’t even believe in violence -- and he might be a recycler -- besides he doesn’t know the difference between a Chinese Type 95 and a Finnish Sako M90” --

“Father,” Junior said excitedly, “Harry Reid is on the hopper!”

Father chuckled wisely:“Ah so.”

The Secret Brigade had Senator Reid’s D.C. landline tapped from inside a local telephone central office courtesy of phone company insiders.They had also re-configured his cell phone software and programmed it as a tracking device and open microphone while also infecting it with the infinity bug so that they could listen in to everyone “Hooligan Harry” called and then everyone that everyone else called after that right into INFINITY.But where they really “had the commie/environmentalist jerk” was with their spy satellite, provided by a sympathetic Wall Street corporation still in business -- just barely -- propped up by the infamous weaklings Bush’s and Obama’s bail-out plans, and its thermal imaging radar action coupled with the most advanced software available (stolen from the NSA) which made watching “Hooligan Harry” in the privacy of his own home almost like having X-ray glasses that really worked.Not like those phony spiral glasses that Junior had sent away for at Marvel Comics so that he could look right through his Sunday school teacher’s dress, and see her naked --

Man, had that been a bummer: he had waited weeks to get a look at Mrs. Roberts boobies.Hey, maybe his father could get her on the spy satellite list by classifying her as a “godless liberal-environmentalist or Republican traitor.”In fact, she probably should be.What had she said that one time about God: something about how God loved everyone equally?

Bull.

Junior knew that some people could be so stupid:

Except for traitors and morons everyone knew about the One World Government conspiracy, F.E.M.A.’s plans to lock up real Patriots in abandoned military bases and Chinese Laundries all over the U.S.Heck, nearly a million U.N. Troops were already hiding in predetermined wilderness zones in New Jersey, Sacramento County, DC, and Gary, Indiana, and in that submerged super secret submarine just outside of Burlington, VT, deep in Lake Champlain (the rebuilt Nazi U-Boat was disguised as Nessy, the Lake Champlain Monster).Though, Junior often wondered how all those Jewish and African soldiers wearing big baby blue military helmets could hide in plain sight in American malls and on Fox News without anyone getting wise, but his mother told him not to bother Father with trivialities --

Junior suddenly giggled:Lately, the “boys” had been zapping “Hooligan Harry” with one of their so-called non-lethal torture/harassment weapons (invented in North Korea), or just enough to get him to twitch like a puppet and then to make him a little nauseous and dizzy, except that one time when he fell down a flight of stairs and ended up in a full body cast.

Boy had that been a hoot. “Hooligan Harry” had spent a week in the hospital drinking his meals through a Silly straw.

Father took the cell phone from Junior.“Let me see -- Holy moly,” he whistled at the enhanced image of the “Hooligan Harry” sitting on his toilet laboring under the idiotic belief that he was protected by the U.S. Constitution and so no one was watching.“Don’t let Mama see this guy’s wiener.Hoo doggies!”

Father slammed a closed fist into an open hand:Bam.“There are freaks in America that want to take our rights away by banning terrorizing, stalking with spyware, and spying on suspected future environmentalists -- children.There are freaks in Congress that want to make us pursue our prey as dictated and so confined by the U.S. Constitution -- my gawd, the U.S. Constitution.Freaks that are traitors to this great country.Can you believe the nerve” --

“Maybe they just want to stop the peeping, and eavesdropping, and scaring children dear,” Mama opined.

“Don’t be stupid,” Father said gruffly.“It’s just like colored, Mexican, Jewish, women, white people we don’t like, union workers, and various other miscellaneous unimportant peoples’ rights: they’re trying to take OUR rights away.”

“Uncle Fester,” Junior said, “Caught a Filipino last year in one of his un-white bait traps in L.A.” --

“Never mind one small victory,” Father snapped.“This is a terrorist enterprise where we as a family can commune with nature in a city park, and spend quality time huddled together in this spy fort with our illegal and overwhelming firepower waiting to kill a vicious environmentalist.”

“Yes dear,” Mama said.“But, y’know dressing up in these outfits and the lipstick and face paint is fun too though, isn’t it?”

Father affectionately patted the twelve-year-old on the head and said, “Good boy.They’re just lucky we let them bait and stalk environmentalists with us.”

They all laughed.

“It was much lonelier when I was younger and terrorized alone” Father said.“Much more dangerous, too.I’m glad we bait, stalk, and terrorize as a family now.”

The family quieted at the homage borne from Father’s great heart.The kind statement was sort of a surprise since Father considered himself a rugged individualist and wasn’t a lovey-dovey sort of sissy guy.He was known throughout the National Alliance, the White Power Soccer Moms, the Aryan Nations, and the Heinrich Himmler Summer Camp as an expert baiter, patient, even scientific -- hell he had spent a lot of time testing various scientific stalking and terrorizing methods on “those queer men in the Castro” (even though pretending to be a cross-dresser in women’s clothing had so thoroughly disgusted Father, he -- most certainly -- “had a favorite outfit”).

Junior in particular was extremely impressed by the Homeric environmentalist baiters who stalked their vicious prey alone.They spent many hours in their camouflaged tree forts in other city parks struggling to overcome the odds, fighting Mother Nature and the cold and the urge to quit (and do something more compelling like whittling) just to bait, stalk and terrorize an environmentalist.It took a lot of self-discipline and even more beer to be a lone, Herculean environmentalist baiter.But thank god there were still some rugged individualists left because at the end of every summer Junior found a ton of discarded Hustler and Penthouse magazines underneath all the camouflaged tree forts in Golden Gate Park.In the last year alone he had salvaged at least a dozen dirty magazines, and many of the pictures were still intact and showed everything.Though, it was true that his father had gotten very upset with him and ordered Junior to remove all of the articles before father would let him keep the magazines.

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion Junior blurted out, even though he knew it would take many years of vicious and barbaric gang stalking and sociopathic and psychotic terrorist practice, “Someday I want to be a Master Baiter just like you dad.”

Please support the First Amendment Museum, 184 State Street, Portland, Maine, 04101.

The Playground

By Kevin O’Kendley

She squeezed his shoulder, her long nails bit into his skin. He yelped, jerked away. She pulled him roughly back into line.

People were watching.

“Don’t Jimmy,” she said tersely.

The little boy looked up at his mother with hurt eyes. “Okay,” he said quietly.

She idly scratched his head, a fond practice -- she touched him a lot, both in anger and with love.

They stood in a busy line of older people, in that time between breakfast and lunch at McDonald’s. Some of the old ones, in their bright and well-pressed clothes, smiled at the little boy, a blonde, cute five-year-old. But, some of the elders frowned at the young woman or studied her openly, brusquely and unkindly: she’d been too rough with the boy. And, she was not well kempt:

Though she was pretty there was a mass of beaded, blackhead pimples across her forehead. Her light hair hung in straight lank, thin, dirty strands to her shoulders. She was unnaturally skinny. She was hunched and tired. There were dark circles and pouches under her eyes.

It looked as if she’d been crying.

The boy and his mother were dressed in battered but clean clothes, which some sharp but fair judges in the tribe of the elderly noticed in her favor. A nice lady smiled and a skittish man nodded at her.

At the register she had just enough money to buy the boy some hash brown potatoes and a small carton of milk.

There would be nothing for her.

After mother and son got their food they left the old people and went out front to the indoor playground.

And, everything changed for the boy --

As he yelled and took off his shoes, ran, and climbed up the padded fish ladder to the sky. Once atop the screened-in maze he crawled at top speed through a jumble of special effects and then came down a bright yellow, curly-Q slide to scamper out at the bottom on the soft carpeted floor.

He laughed all the way up and down the slide again.

The mother watched the boy, her lone child, but she didn’t smile, not even when he waved at her.

The playground was half-filled with children, mothers, and a father. Everyone was better dressed than she. Everyone had more food on their tables than she did.

She winced:

Unfocused, she looked at the people around her with resentment, bewilderment, then anger, and down at her son’s untouched meal; sad, broken-hearted.

She studied the food.

The boy climbed back up to the top of the suspended playground in the air-conditioned, summer room. It was a giant wonderland, a refuge with floor-to-ceiling windows and an eagle’s view to the outside world:

He laughed.

His mother looked up from the fried potatoes and watched her little boy with lips tight and eyes pensive --

She turned away --

And quickly ate some of the hash browns -- just a bite or two -- but left all of the milk, pushing it away like a piece of jewelry she could not afford.

Suddenly, without looking at her son, she got up and -- staring straight ahead -- went outside to the parking lot through a side door.

She didn’t have a car.

From his eagle’s perch, as several laughing children passed by, the little boy curiously watched his mother as she strode woodenly out of the parking lot and down 2nd Street.

Confused, he stared after her --

Understanding, his smile died --

As she began to jog down the busy road.

He watched:

Her receding figure until his eyes brimmed with tears and he started to cry softly.

Escaping religious persecution, famine, ethnic cleansing, the secret police, serf-slavery, gaining a voyage of tears; seeking a meal, salvation, work, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Shanghaied or shipped in chains, all tribes, all peoples, the world over, converge in this…

AmericaBy Kevin O’Kendley

America is the Great Experiment, an evolving human revolution and social evolution of ideas and ideals instigated by seismic revolt in 1776, separating itself from the Old World and its Old Ways, from kings and servitude, from “unfair treatment" that "makes men mad,”* from no rights to the Rights of Man, hungry for promise and in dogged pursuit of liberty, freedom, and human rights. America is a cauldron of innovation and hard work, a diverse and creative melting pot percolating with ethnicities, nationalities, races -- all American -- still struggling, still evolving, still fighting any and all injustice and poverty of the soul and of the belly, and still infused with moral expectation -- a national spirit built from the bottom up, from the tethered underdog to a free people.

A people of hope.

This hope is in our freedom of religion, Christian, Muslim, Jew; this hope is in our music, African, German, Celtic; it’s in our literature, English, Mexican, French; it’s in our laws, Judeo-Christian, Greek and Roman, Sumerian and Egyptian; and it’s in our games: baseball and football created by the children of immigrants, lacrosse by Native Americans, and boxing by the poorest of the poor.

The mongrel genius of our creations are not limited to rodeo, stock car racing, basketball, poker, DC politics, it exists in our books, art and films, Modernist, Impressionist, Hollywood, Idiot Savant, David vs. Goliath; it’s in our charity, our volunteerism, our self-sacrifice, our everyday heroism, from the bus driver to the farm worker to the lawyer to the mayor to the cook to the journalist to the police officer, and it’s in our telephone pages, read one -- pick any phone book -- and you’ll see the entire Earth spring forth from the pages with a universal voice:

“This is America.”

The Earth and its entire people are represented as free citizens in this country -- this microcosm of the world -- this United States.The Great Experiment is on-going, creative and combustible, right then wrong then right, and necessary for the advancement of humankind.Many people -- anywhere, everywhere -- still look to this country with hope.

Our innovators and builders and pioneers and forebears have been thinkers, soldiers, artists, saints and sinners, fathers and mothers that lost their children, brothers and sisters that lost their parents, the condemned seeking reprieve, the downtrodden in pursuit of justice, the exiled in search of a home, the damned -- redemption.These pragmatic dreamers were strong-hearted human beings that fought hopelessness, despair, and fear.These survivors came in search of the elusive, the missing, the unobtainable: work, liberty, freedom, happiness, and they came armed with great expectations.They came to build something that would last, that would house parent’s and child’s hopes, desires, and happiness, that would exact fair play for all, and might inspire a new nation and an old world.

It wasn’t easy and it isn’t easy for their descendants --

It isn’t supposed to be.

The inspired inventors of our industries, our music, our art, our literature, our medicines, our medical machines and care, our laws, our technical and mechanical achievements, our social protections, our cultural love of the underdog and the odd man out, our umbilical love of freedom and liberty came to the Great Experiment from the trials of terror, want, misery, deprivation, and tyranny.

The exodus of immigrants escaped death sentences and living deaths, survived coffin ships, came in chains from Africa, from starvation and famine in Europe, from serfdom in Asia, from religious, racial, tribal, or ethnic persecution.They came from the Nazi death camps, from the killing fields of Cambodia, and from refugee camps the world over.They came to build, to achieve, and to create within the dynamic of daily struggle. They came from Armenia, England, Rwanda, Papua New Guinea, Bosnia, the Apache Nation, Scotland, Russia, Holland, Indonesia, Hungary, Spain, India, Ukraine, their names were Shultz, O’Callaghan, Smith, Swenson, Lafayette, Than, Olo, Bandini, Walid, Leftwich, Orenstein, Pagopian, Ortiz, Li, Kivu, Abdullah…

They came to be Americans.

In Washington DC there are museums, memorials, shrines, that offer testimony to America, its history, its mission, its morality, its concept of fair play, its goals and mistakes, and its Constitution, which states all human beings are equal under the law, that our worth as living sentient beings is inviolate: it doesn’t matter whether someone is black or white, Republican or Democrat, man or woman, gay or straight, Baptist or Atheist, child or elder, bag lady or diva.

The proof of our success through struggle exists within the simple and the complex truths that we cherish and for which we strive, and is both at the core and the ever-changing mosaic of life in America’s small towns, big cities, farms, auto plants, military bases, courtrooms, ghettoes, Nob Hills and Tenderloins, offices, construction sites, in the balcony or the cheap seats, at the front of the bus or the back. The proof of this country is in its people’s eternal hope and in their iron-hard pursuit of justice predicated on the absolute rights of the human being.

The proof of America is in the eyes of its people --

Even when they stumble, falter, get knocked down --

Even as they get back up, time after time.

As history is measured, America is a relatively young country but its roots are old growth -- ancient -- and can be found in every nook and cranny, every climate, soil and terrain on earth in Native America, France, Poland, Britain, Georgia, Jordan, Burma, Nigeria, Armenia, Samoa, Thailand, Kenya, Surinam, Ireland, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Slovakia, from every tribe or people. As the Great Experiment mixes new growth to the roots of evolving revolution, and as varied as life and human kind itself, the people come from Canada, Cuba, the Sudan, Mexico, Russia, China, Argentina, Liberia, Israel, Palestine, Australia, Pakistan, Chile, Mauritania, the Czech Republic, Vietnam…

Americans are the descendants of the builders of the Anasazi Cliff Dwellings of Colorado, the Taj Mahal of India, the Acropolis of Greece, the Pyramids of Egypt, Machu Picchu of Peru, the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, Angkor Wat of Cambodia, the Khami settlement of Zimbabwe, Stonehenge of England, the Great Wall of China, the Eredo Walls of Nigeria, the Pont Du Gard of France, the Roman Coliseum of Italy, the Byzantine Walled Obelisk of Turkey, the Chichen Itza pyramid of Mexico, the Provadia settlement of Bulgaria, and other testimonials to human blood, sweat, and tears reaching back through the dawn of time.

There is nowhere on earth, no mountain, no jungle, no tenement, no desert, no church, no temple, no mosque, no refugee camp, no tribe, no race, where a human being, no matter how obscure the language or culture or lifestyle cannot look at America and see themselves.Despots and tyrants and mass murderers cannot look here without seeing the women and men of their tribe, of their region, of their religion, of their language, of their nation living as free human beings, as Americans.

Even as they murder their own people, Bashar al-Asad and ISIS cannot condemn America without seeing free Syrian-Americans.The Ayatollas can recite Trojan-Horse litany to justify the enslavement of ideas and people but they cannot look here without seeing free Iranian-Americans. Kim Jong-Un can imprison political opponents behind a wall of totalitarian slogans and smother the dreams of his country’s children but he cannot look here, even for a heartbeat, and not see free Korean-Americans.

The United States of America is a place where even enemies from the Gaza Strip and Israel sup side-by-side in a Brooklyn coffee shop, where Pakistanis and Indians play softball together in a Boston park, where Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants marry in Butte, Montana, where Lebanese Maronites and Sunnis root together in a San Francisco bar for the Giants, where Somalians of warring factions trust their children to the same daycare center in Lewiston, Maine.

The national origins of America farmers can be Greek, Finnish, Sri Lankan, Cantonese; shrimpers can be Cajun, Vietnamese, Norwegian, Dutch; carpenters can be Nigerian, Welsh, Brazilian, Estonian; doctors can be Portuguese, Moroccans, French, Hungarian; lawyers can be German, Italian, Algerian, Austrian; teachers can be Palestinian, Swiss, Japanese, Belgian; soldiers can be Danish, Kenyan, Scot, Native American, politicians can be Finnish, Taiwanese, Icelandic, Egyptian, journalists can be Lebanese, Lithuanian, Eskimo, South African, police can be Irish, Zambian, Mexican, Polish, sailors can be Tagalog, Belgian, English, Columbian, a bartender can be Israeli, Swedish, Macedonian, Syrian, and Iowans are of and all of these people and many others, and so are Texans, and so are Alabamans, and so are New Mexicans, and so are New Yorkers, and so are Californians, and so are Nebraskans, and so are Mainers --

American --

Every last one of us --

In this Great Experiment --

This America.-end-

* Ned Kelly, Irish-Australian outlaw

​​Povertyby Kevin O'Kendley

Poverty can be both the inspiration and ruination of dreams but the tipping point is at the heart of a nation.-end-

Peevus Jonson had a carbuncle on his shoulder that looked like a small head, a human head.

​Normally a carbuncle is a large member of the wart family, a benign tumor of roiled skin and hair follicles, but it can also be a gem, a jewel, a prize, it all depends...In this case the carbuncle was a dead ringer for Abe Lincoln, complete with the beard.

In the summer when Jonson wasn’t wearing a shirt and the carbuncle was on display some congenial folks would ask pertinent questions about this permanent hitchhiker: “Can Mr. Lincoln talk?”“Does he chew tobacco?”“Who controls your body you or Mr. Lincoln?”“Who is Mr. Lincoln voting for?”“Is that Abe Lincoln or your caddy?”Answers, though, were few or not forthcoming.

People didn’t always seem to really, ah, like Jonson very much but seemed to like Mr. Lincoln just fine.Okay, yes, strangers preferred to converse with the carbuncle over Jonson; it was just the way it was.For a while Jonson tried to go with this tide of public opinion and put a little stovepipe hat on the carbuncle to encourage social interaction and make people happy.So, heck, things weren’t too bad in the summer months for Jonson and Mr. Lincoln, however during the winter, the carbuncle, who was perched on Jonson’s left shoulder (no his other left) gave some people the willies because, well, Jonson kind of looked like he had an undercover bowling ball on his shoulder and people suspected that Mr. Lincoln was hiding in there somewhere.

The “hump” also caused Jonson to look as if he wasn’t standing up straight, which seemed to add insult to injury with some innocent and other passersby.It was like how dare this guy force us into this awkward position?He’s making us queasy, seasick.

Jonson’s old gym coach Mr. Wnokell used to tell Jonson to “stand up straight” and/or accused him of this: “Are you trying to steal a volleyball or a basketball or a football, y’know under your shirt, you jerkwad?”

In fact, Coach Wnokell once roughly yanked Jonson’s sweatshirt up by the neck of the garment to search for a possible stolen volleyball. However when he uncovered the giant carbuncle instead, Coach Wnokell said (almost demurely), “Oh, pardon me Mr. Lincoln.Sorry Mr. President.” The coach politely re-covered the monumental member of the wart family.He said this next as an aside to no known or visible entity: “It’s probably one of those pesky Democrats or Republicans stealing the volleyballs and not a carbuncle anyway,” and this worked for Coach Wnokell because hewas an Independent.

Unfortunately, when Jonson got older the carbuncle developed a sort of leer.Once this happened more suspicious type-A personalities, and some B and C personalities too, became somewhat antagonistic of Mr. Lincoln, who then took a tumbling in back-alley informal polls and became “just Abe.” Some people seemed to believe that the carbuncle had become somewhat impolite or oddly accusatory.When winter came around again people remembered Abe and his summer leer and held Jonson responsible for the fact that Abe was probably leering at them under layers of all the heavy clothing.No one considered that it was cold outside and Jonson couldn’t walk around naked without being arrested.

One day there was a fire at the old Harnsuckle Puppet Theater, where legend had it Roy Rogers’ beagle Underbite had his dew claws removed in an emergency procedure in the lobby during a Pinocchio revival with Punch and Judy and Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney.Jonson and Abe were standing out front of the ancient behemoth of a stick-built building as it burned.Jonson’s excuse to firefighters was that he had just happened to be there when he noticed smoke and fire and so tried to help.

Even though both carbuncle and host endeavored to do the right thing during the fire their suspicious proximity to the catastrophe gave some nasty gossips a chance to start a rumor that Jonson and Abe had something to do with the conflagration (though the fire was probably a cold blooded and/or astute business decision not connected to them at all).And, of course there was the fact that the “freakin carbuncle wouldn’t talk.”

Eventually, the two were chased out of town even though they didn’t do anything wrong.

And, because Abe continued to refuse to answer questions about the fire (or anything else for that matter) the two Siamese-joined adventurers were run out of one place after another as would-be firebugs, suspected malcontents, and maybe some sort of Latvian Greco-Roman wrestlers.But, this is where things got kind of interesting or so the History Channel later theorized in the famous but short lived series What? Yo Mama! starring that incredible elder statesman Mr. T and his talented wife Ms. E-T.

Jonson met a woman, Glouie, in Albuttburg Township up by Wenneckady that had a carbuncle on her right shoulder that looked like Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary.Glouie and Jonson fell in love proving what romantics the world over have always claimed: there is someone for everybody, a true soul mate out there, even if she later divorces you because you wandered away with an inadequate excuse and left her alone to raise the kids and to fight ISIS by herself.

Mary and Abe seemed to match up just fine, too.

Then this happened: it turned out that Jonson had a flair for turning a buck, which led to this:

After fleeing a lynch mob in BettyWhiteville, Nebraska, Jonson had an epiphany over the Colorado state line in a sugar beet field dodging pronghorns: he would invest in torches and pitchforks…

So they did.

It was really a stroke of American ingenuity and chutzpah: Glouie disguised herself as a barnacle-encrusted survivor of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific (the largest garbage dump on the planet) thereby generating an aura of compassion.She would show up a day ahead of the giant carbuncle and his driver to any town/city and warn the people that Jonson and Abe were on the way.Then she would sell all the new customers torches (& matches) and pitchforks (& sharpening stones), etc.When Abe and Jonson arrived a lynch mob would greet them with pitchforks and fired up torches.It was usually very exciting and surprisingly lucrative.

After the main event, Glouie usually sold weenies and marshmallows to anyone that wanted to get further use out of the torches.

The stress, however, of this lifestyle was too much for Mary and she became a “basket case,” or a “head after it is cut off by a guillotine and falls into the basket” as she explained it to her husband.Thankfully, after several years of this road show the two lovers became parents and decided to settle down.

Without any real discussion Abe and Mary decided to settle down too.

Unfortunately, Mary and Abe were never blessed by children though Abe became an excellent poker player -- what a bluffer (oy a face like a slab of stone).The enterprising carbuncle went on to win the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in Ought Five winning 1.2 million dollars ($312.00 after taxes).

Mary became a mystery writer who proved to be provocative, humorous, insightful, and kind of dark using a female pro volleyball player (in honor of her husband) as a heroine that routinely solved political motivated murders in places like Tarzana, Milpitas, both Lewistons, Tucumcari, and Clavicle Junction in American Samoa where the human clavicle was first discovered by non-Europeans or two centuries before Europeans proved that the world was round and Samoa existed.

Sidebar:So?Hmmm? If Samoa didn’t exist until discovered by Europeans was the clavicle just a theory until the discovery?Is that another socio-scientific Catch-22?If Yank Samoa is drowned by rising Global Warming waters will the human clavicle still exist?And, if not can you pitch for the Red Sox if you don’t have a clavicle?

In one of her books The Voices in the Walls: Are They Good or Bad? her protagonist, Clara “Knuckles” Cockles, solves the age-old mystery of where toys, buttons, pens, batteries, earrings, socks, your table manners, bald walruses, u-turns, and all the other odds and ends of things that suddenly disappear without warning or explanation in everyone’s lives, including, of course, the massive loss of livestock and palm trees from Pismo Beach on March 8, 1992.

Interestingly: it was a group of professional sneak thieves that were paid by sources from an unnamed shadowy international group to con consumers into buying repackaged items that they (the customers) had already purchased once and had lost to “mysterious circumstances” or in other words the unsuspecting consumers/customers bought “hot merchandise” that was actually stolen from them in the first place:

Fortunately, the cows and palm trees were recovered in warehouses in Helsinki in 2004.It seems a consortium of Russian émigrés had been hoodwinked by some “pseudo-Scotsmen” disguised as Canadian cowboys complete with the customary flannel socks.The Finns gave the dead palm trees back to the City of Pismo Beach who declined the C.O.D. costs.As a good neighbor, Mexico is investigating.

The cows refused to return to California because of the drought, because of the ugly rumors that many Californians might not eat them, for religious reasons, for all of the above.

Last year Jonson ran for mayor of Hamburglaar, their adopted home town, in Alabama, with this motto: Two heads are better than one.Glouie, laughingly, told her husband that he had “twice as many brains as the nut job he lost to.”Then her husband told her that when she “laughed she floated almost weightless, defying the laws of gravity.”Delighted, Glouie told her husband that it “was good to break a rule every now and then.”And, then they both laughed and had another baby about nine months after that.

At that point they had two children, neither child with more than one head, which as any parent can tell you “saves all kinds of money in buying hats.”

And then this came to be:

After relaxing on a cedar deck that Abe and Mary built, drinking virgin Daiquiris, and reminiscing about the old days of pitchforks and torches and lynch mobs one of those moments popped up that most people know about but can never plan, seizing the spirit of each person’s perspective in velvet carpe diem gloves:

The sunset was a child’s finger-painting of primary colors merging into that which defied description -- “heaven through God’s eye,” Jonson claimed -- seamless in transition, radiating understanding though not definable by the words of any language, for drunk or judge, seeker or bore, parent or loner, student or teacher, seaman or carpenter, police officer or penitent, saint or sinner, waitress or diner, atheist or believer, pauper or king, panderer or iconoclast, and even for freaks --

Like Glouie and Jonson, and Mary and Abe…

Jonson said, by knowing absolutely: “It doesn’t get any better than this (I love you).”

Glouie answered, in saying all of that and then some: “Yes.You’re right (I love you too).”

Mary and Abe each nodded, though neither said anything as they were at an utter loss to muster all those words that are simply unfit for the task of explaining the unexplainable.

What happens when the law can’t tell a famous outlaw from a famous radio personality?

Absolute Chaos: The Pascal Leemur Caper

by Kevin O’Kendley

It’s true that people were a lot crazier back in the 60s and 70s (all you had to do was to look at the Bee Gees and Andy Warhol to know that) -- the only reason no one today really knows how crazy is because the whackos from “those days” are “old respectable folks” and are running all the newspapers and Television news shows and so the real facts of the “groovy old days” are downplayed or blacked out.

But, just because crazy Pascal Leemur came-of-age during those tumultuous times -- called the Age of Aquarius by historians like Timothy Leary -- was never an excuse for his wide array of anti-social behavior even if his parents were artsy-fartsy types (called hippies) who were reputed to have smoked pot during Mrs. Leemur’s pregnancy with Pascal, which may explain his misshapen head: from his right-side profile Pascal looks a little like the Continent of Australia (if it is a continent, which I doubt sometimes -- I mean the U.S. isn’t a continent and we’re bigger).

I’m not going to get into the argument of Intelligent Creation versus Darwinian Accidental Evolution -- or that all life has just been a series of compounded and convoluted mistakes as scientists believe -- but the fact that Pascal Leemur even exists could be a dramatic point against the Intelligent Creation crowd.

It’s true, just because Pascal was a depraved individual that didn’t mean he wasn’t sly and dangerous, because he was.Also he looked like some famous guy but I kind of stumbled on that fact a little too late.We pursued him for weeks Upstate north of I-90 through briar and bramble all the way to Canada and, boy, the nasty tricks that oddball played on us -- but I’m getting ahead of myself.

To be fair Pascal claimed that he took some over-the-counter pills, which he saw advertised on TV, and that was when he lost it and painted the mustache on the Statue of Eleanor Roosevelt in the Downtown Park, which started the whole nasty series of events.He told me before he escaped from my jail that while it was true that the “medicine” caused him to have a four to six-hour erection it wasn’t him that violated some small and privately owned barnyard animals as his neighbor Mr. Greenjeans claimed.Still, it is a known scientific fact that big animal violators start with small animals, and an eyewitness farmhand/real estate agent in Holiday Junction claimed he saw Pascal in a compromising position with a cow (though in a letter to The Daily News from his hideout in Canada Pascal contended that it wasn’t a cow but a horse, thus proving, Pascal claimed, that the farmhand/real estate agent/cartoonist-writer was an unreliable witness).

At the time of this monstrous act, Pascal snidely told the farmhand/real estate agent/cartoonist-writer that he had lost his car keys in the cow/horse, but upon hearing such a lame excuse I immediately cast doubt upon that theory because Pascal didn’t have a car.Later Pascal told a passing and friendly mail-carrier, who had given Pascal directions to the closest tailor (he really needed his pant-waist taken out by then), that he had just been “joking” with the farmhand/real estate agent/cartoonist-writer and had mounted the “horse” only as “a vehicle in which to facilitate my escape.”There is some scuttlebutt that this may have been true because Pascal used/rode a donkey, a yak, and even Mrs. Greenjeans while trying to outdistance my posse.

As for the blatant lie that I was nursing hard feelings for Pascal over the “tentacle” thing with my son, it wasn’t true.See, at our house we don’t use “bathroom words” so I told my fourteen-year-old son that his testicles were called tentacles, and that he had two (which he did).Pascal, the smart guy, later told my son that since octopuses have eight tentacles they were smarter than people.While it was true I was furious at the time that Pascal would dare tell my son that octopuses were smarter than people, I got over it.

But, Pascal was always sick.

I was in his fifth grade class at the Carrie Nations School when our teacher asked Pascal if he had washed his hands after “going number one.”Pascal said that he did not because his “peanuts” wasn’t dirty.The teacher, Mr. Loopis, told Pascal that he washed his “peanuts” after going “number one” every time.Well, Pascal smarted off and told Mr. Loopis that of course he, Mr. Loopis, washed his “peanuts after going pee” because Mr. Loopis had a dirty “peanuts,” and maybe Mr. Loopis should try washing his “peanuts” when he was in the bathtub at home so that he wouldn’t have do it at school.

Wow.

It was easy, though, even in the fifth grade to know that Pascal was headed for trouble and that he was somehow “touched in the head” over sexual things and bathroom words, I mean what with not washing his hands after touching his “peanuts” and all.

I wash mine every time I go number one, and number two, but then I’m the sheriff.

Pascal also liked to misrepresent history, too.

I remember a time in high school when Pascal got up in Mrs. Coutchy’s class and gave a report on the father of the U.S. Navy.Pascal said that John Paul Jones had been ordered to surrender by the British during the Civil War but that John Paul told the British, “No way, man.I’ve just begun to fight,” which was probably mostly true.But, Pascal also said that his dad told him that there had been a Boatswain’s mate “standing heroically” in the ruins of the deck of the U.S.S. Good Ship Lollipop along with the first “female member” of the Navy, Shirley Temple, who was also the first U.S. “female representative” at the United Nations.So, Pascal said that the Boatswain’s mate told the British and their frigates to “frig off” (which is where the word came from in the first place).He said his dad told him that Boatswain’s mates have been saying “frig off” ever since to anyone that they meet that they don’t like, especially to chiefs, and this patriotic custom has been passed down over the years to other Americans when confronting authority figures.Of course, every time he said “frig” Mrs. Coutchy had a hissy fit.So, he kept saying it until the principal came to get him.

He got paddled but I don’t think it did any good:

Pascal’s father had been a Boatswain’s mate in the Navy.

Yeah, Pascal was always misrepresenting history so I seriously doubted a story he once told me while we were standing in line to register for the draft, after he rudely cut in front of Wee Wilkie Nettles and got in a fight with Wee Wilkie, and then screamed at Wee Wilkie: “Hey, don’t have a conniption fit, Wee Wilkie.”

After Pascal got sent to the back of the line where I was, and where I had been for days (I politely kept letting people go ahead of me), Pascal told me about the ancient Conniptions who lived somewhere near Mesopotamia even before the days of Moses.Pascal claimed that the ancient Conniptions invented the wheel and the fry griddle, which could have been true, but the part about them inventing knee socks, well, I didn’t go for that then or now.

Scotsmen invented knee socks.

Pascal also told me, once, that Scotsmen didn’t wear underpants underneath their Catholic-school-plaid-dresses (or “kilts” in Scottish).I didn’t believe him: the very concept was gross, but as I have already established Pascal had real issues with sexual things and bathroom words.

Pascal claimed that the Conniptions had terrible tempers.He said that they would get so angry that their heads would explode.Somebody from Egypt or China was eating at the main Conniption Palace when they commented that the “food stinks.”And, all hell broke loose because it was the king’s best cook that prepared the feast and it was the national food, Conniption Goulash.Instead of going to war with the Egyptians and/or the Chinese, within weeks all of the ancient Conniptions’ heads exploded, and the rest is history.

The wheel, the fry griddle, and the “conniption fit” have all survived but not a single Conniption.

Huh?

I suspect Pascal turned himself in because it was Taco Tuesday (at my jail) because he escaped the very next day on Weiner Wednesday.It’s against county law for inmates to smoke inside the jail so we let some of them outside in the alley to puff their lungs out at the same time the kitchen crew from Sally’s Bohemian Restaurant would light up because Ellis Poppinjay, Sally’s sous chef, works for me part-time as a deputy, and we operate on a shoestring budget.When Corporal Wheelie told me that he had let Pascal outside to smoke, I said, “Good God man, he doesn’t smoke -- or at least not tobacco!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell the corporal that not only did he help a pot smoker to escape but Pascal was a probably a small animal violator as well.

Pascal somehow conned Deputy Ellis into thinking that he was a famous radio personality and that he had stepped outside Sally’s to take a smoke, which he then borrowed from the deputy.To be fair Deputy Ellis was preparing chicken pot pie from scratch and was a little preoccupied as you might imagine if you’ve ever tried to pinch the doe together at the end, after getting all that goop in there, to make the pie.So, while we searched every inch of the block the wily Pascal was calmly feasting on the daily special in Sally’s -- cornbread, succotash, baked beans, Jello, and coffee -- and signing autographs --

Heck, I wish I’d known about that part of him looking like some famous radio guy, but at that point I didn’t know what anyone on the radio looked like: I was way too busy as sheriff to watch Oprah and/or 60 Minutes.

It seems that Sally had “comped” the meal in return for an autograph from Pascal, who then left a twenty-five per cent tip for Casswell Dinkins, a male waiter, which I thought was fairly decent of him given it was usually the female waitresses that got the big bucks in Sally’s.

We chased Pascal all the way to Canada.

We nearly had him two or three times but each time he gave us the slip.In Watertown, we just missed him at a The Grecian Spa -- his chest waxing was on the house -- and later at a svelte dinner house on Route 37 -- free of charge again, even a bottle of champagne.And though we contacted the border patrol outside Odensburg in plenty of time, Pascal Leemur was waved through customs drinking cocktails in a stretch limo with “two female guests all over him.”

I was furious.

A stretch limo?

C’mon.

A week later Deputy Ellis was down in New York City on restaurant business and saw Pascal having lunch in some fancy Manhattan bistro with a bunch of business types in big-dollar suits and pearl necklaces.

I rushed down as fast as I could get there (technically outside of my jurisdiction) with the siren blaring the whole way but we missed him.Unfortunately, Ellis had lost Pascal after he boarded a helicopter atop a nearby office building.

But, we didn’t quit.No sir.After staking out the restaurant for two days, Pascal finally showed up.

We braced the well-dressed fugitive on the sidewalk, Ellis and me, and fourteen people, including two parking meter maids, promptly beat us to a pulp.

It seems we tried to arrest Rush Limbaugh, the next best thing to Pascal Leemur’s identical twin.

Oh, I know: somewhere up in Canada Pascal Leemur is laughing it up BIG TIME, happy as a clam.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, laugh it up you criminal scumbag, the jokes on you: the Canadians can’t stand Rush Limbaugh. -end-

The happy bus driver had one of those flat top haircuts that were popular when Fess Parker was Davey Crockett back in the dawn of TV Land time when life was generally recorded in black and white, except for Life Magazine which sometimes ran Amok in color.The driver nodded at her with a pleasant smile: “There’s a seat towards the back.Right-hand side.Last one, ma’m.”

Eva could remember when a guy might have whistled at her or some jerk might even have called her baby doll but now she got ma’m a lot, which was generic, but by definition courteous and so she shrugged with her long gray-black hair quivering down her back.

Ma’m?

Really.

On board the Greyhound Bus were children, brown folks, the young, the old, black folks, parents, grandparents, white folks, in Hawaiian shirts, flip flops, boots and cowboy hats, all dressed for summer, no two alike.Clutching her football-sized purse she walked boldly down the aisle a part of this living mosaic, looking here and -- yep -- there: a seat, 11-C.

Eva liked the aisle seats because that’s where all the action was --

There was a young man all scrunched up in the window seat.

Huh?

Her internal warning buzzer hummed.Something felt wrong: it wasn’t like a frenetically ringing doorbell wherein her second husband Philbert, the train conductor from Mass., the one that used to yell, “Alla boarrrrdd,” might hiss in that hoarse voice of his, “Get the freakin door willya Eva.Get the freakin door.That doorbell is gonna drive me nuts.”God bless the old halibut but he had a good heart.No, the something wrong was more subtle like she was watching her sister’s family on the front porch even as she missed the big dangling chimes that were silent in the wind.

She sat down next to the dark haired young man with a goatee, gray-green eyes, slender, a K-Mart shirt with ducks on it (she bought the same one for her grandson), with a book in his lap -- what was it?The Boat by Nam Le.Good book: she’d read it as the secretary of the Longfellow Book Club at the Portland Public Library.Good writer that Nam Le.

The young guy -- under thirty -- didn’t look up.The furrows in his forehead reminded Eva of the spring corn rows in her small garden…

The bus started up, left Evanston and half of Eva’s Wyoming relatives behind, heading east on Interstate 80, the old Lincoln Highway.

Philbert had been from Dorchester, Mass. and while on the vacation of a lifetime the poor halibut got hit and killed by a Del Monte pineapple truck in Long Beach, CA.It was on Martin Luther King Day not twenty minutes after visiting the permanently floundering ocean liner, the Queen Mary.“Ships and trains don’t mix,” he used to say.And: “Ships and trains don’t mix,” is what he mumbled just before he died.

It had been Eva that wanted to visit the Queen Mary not Philbert.

Maybe if they’d gone up to Sacramento to see the train museum like he wanted (it was 400 miles away) instead of the Queen Mary, maybe the Del Monte truck would have missed Philbert altogether.Still, Eva’s old friend, Roxanne from Windham not the other Roxanne, used to say, “Fate is like alimony that never comes no matter how much you need the cash.”And, so Eva checked: there was a Del Monte canning factory in Sacramento.Still, knowing for a fact that Philbert could have been hit by a Del Monte pineapple truck in Sacramento just as easy as he had been in Long Beach didn’t really make her feel any better --

Hmmm?

Was she the study of a couple of unfriendly male faces cocked her way?She had African, Penobscot, Persian, French, and Celtic blood in her veins and had been an “exotic beauty” on Munjoy Hill when she was a younger, but the interested looks weren’t for her.The cheap glowers behind the bully masks were shelling her seat mate with long blistering grimaces followed by bunker-busting sneers.However, the dark-haired man had his eyes closed and was missing it all.HHHHe might have been asleep but Eva doubted it because the guy’s eyeballs were doing the Macarena underneath the lids.

The dark-haired fella -- who could be Hispanic heavy with Old Catalonia spicing or maybe even Sicilian by way of a Welsh mother -- had gallantly offered her the window seat.She refused the gentlemanly offer not just because she liked to scope things out in the center of the bus but because this part of Wyoming hadn’t changed much from a day earlier when she’d been out and about with Beatrice, her sister.

Beatrice had married a Wyoming cowboy she met in Seattle despite being warned why she probably shouldn’t marry a cowboy, ever, by Willie Nelson, and of course by many other astute writers, including Mrs. Wild Bill Hickock in the biography Dead Man’s Hand.

Beatrice claimed, from the time they were kids, that Eva never missed a thing: of course when Eva was younger she was more like that Angela Jolie character, the one with the ropes, whips, and guns, but now that she was older, aging, old, she felt more like Jane Marple in an Agatha Christie mystery, though she was still under seventy, though barely.

She’d had two husbands named Philbert (what were the odds?).She could have called her second husband Bert and the third hubby Phil but her first life mate was nicknamed Phil, short for Philip, so she called her second husband Philbert and her third Bert.Bert said she had a memory like an elephant and a good thing too because the poor man was suffering from Alzheimer’s and was in a hospice in Scarborough, so she had to remember what she could for both of them.Sadly he was at the point where he didn’t know if his name was Philbert or the Green Lantern.The disease had been a terrifying and heart-breaking experience --

Terrifying.

He’d been such a good man -- still is a good, smart, kind man --

But she wasn’t going to think about it.

Huh?

The stiff-necked and angry looking guy turned around from two rows away in 9-B, and, leaning away from his seat, looked back at her seat mate with a Vaudeville-curled-lip-of-distain sort of face thing.

Eva liked to name the characters in all the People Dramas she witnessed on her trips by plane, train, bus, or whatnot.She christened this guy Turtlehead for obvious reasons.Turtlehead’s sneer was an excellent emotional conveyance, it was kind of like what Humphrey Bogart did in the Maltese Falcon except Turtlehead’s look of utter distain had more holier than thou in it than anything Bogie ever did.

It was called overacting, but was there a reason behind it?

It was certainly a look pregnant with meaning -- fifteen pound triplets -- except the person that it was meant for wasn’t cooperating.The dark-haired man was now looking out the window at Wyoming, and buttes, and bluffs, and wide-open endless miles of open stuff surrounded by more open stuff, and surrounded by even more open stuff after that with buttes and bluffs on top of it all.

Western Wyoming was beautiful: different from that of the lush vegetation and rocky shores of Maine.Back home there was a riotous explosion of flora and fauna going on, every shade of green known to man with blooms and blossoms and buds and flowers, with ponds and lakes and rivers and a soft sky hinged to a Andrew Wyeth painting.But, in this part of Wyoming it was a stark and dry vista under an endless pale canopy, a Pollock concoction that seemed to transcend the moment, suggesting a different time.

It was equal beauty painted by different palettes …

During her first trip to Wyoming when she was young, Phil had jokingly asked her this: “Who is this guy Bridgur and why did they name a mountain after his butt?”Of course, it was Bridger, Jim Bridger, and it had been a butte not a butt.Bridger’s Butte.Eva smiled.It was a fond memory and Eva warmed with recall --

And winked at Turtlehead --

Ha, the bald guy didn’t know what to make of it.He blinked with heavy turtle lids and turned away sliding back into his shell.Eva smiled inwardly: maybe all Turtlehead saw was a demure granny in a flowered print dress and not the tough Munjoy Hill bartender who used to toss longshoremen out of The Friendship Club down on Commercial Street.

She smiled again.

When they were young Beatrice warned Eva that no man would ever marry her because “they’re afraid of you.”But that was a definition of affection built upon Beatrice’s fondness of Eva’s legend, which she eagerly helped to build as a boundless gossip, and less about the superstructure of complex relationships between men and women, between people, because Eva got married three times.

Besides, only some of the guys were afraid of her.

She took a deep breath and looked around.The air conditioned Greyhound Bus was as packed with travelers as Pastor Weaver’s heart with good intentions.Everyone and their frigging cousins were going to Cheyenne --

Her seat-mate jerked and his jaw snapped shut with a jarring impact of teeth on teeth.Someone from a few seats away hissed, “You’re dead,” but just so someone might barely hear if they were really paying attention.Eva caught furtive movement in the seat behind the human bull’s eye.A middle-aged woman with a Marge Simpson bouffant was putting something small, about the size of a cell phone, into her purse.Ooh: the smile on the lady’s face was horrid.Eva thought of Betty Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.

So, that’s what she called this new player: Charlotte.

Charlotte?She smiled in memory.When she was eight years old, 1954, she went to Old Town to celebrate the Penobscot Nation’s newly won right to vote both in Maine and in U.S. elections.Her grandmother was a Penobscot Indian.Her name was Charlie, or “meme,” though it was Charlotte on paper, a name Charlie didn’t like.

Next to Charlotte was a cherubic little guy that was sound asleep.He looked like a nice man, a little like the actor Tom Bosley.

Eva boldly studied her seat mate’s face as he smiled wanly, almost apologetically.The young guy had heavy dark pouches -- old guy saddle bags -- under his sad eyes and despite his general overall Mediterranean hue he was pale.The edges of his ragged goatee were uneven, as if he shaved without his reading glasses and at dusk with no light.He needed a shave.

If a restaurant was said to have ambiance his was haunted.

Eva looked past the obvious, deeper into the man, saw something she liked: so she said, “My name is Eva,” fluent with kindness, and stuck out her hand.

“Justin Tagmanian, uh, Tag,” he replied stiffly as they briefly shook hands.It was possible that this was a guy that just was not too good with people.He was obviously uncomfortable. If he were a matre’d customers might go next door to eat unless the food was really good.

Adding substance to introductory fact she said in a low voice: “Eva O’Leary Chechetini.” Then: “I saw what she did.I saw” --

Tag put an index finger in front of his lips and shook his head no.“I’m from Las Vegas,” he said with a melodious disc jockey rhythm, though with a hint of all kinds of other things in there too.He looked at her; then past her, and said quietly, “Don’t get involved.”

Las Vegas?She followed Tag’s gaze to Turtlehead --

At that exact moment the passenger behind Turtlehead in 10-B looked down into the face of his Blackberry.Eva heard the latch of the bathroom door snap shut --

An earnest looking and clean shaven fellah directly across the aisle from her in 11-B -- Dr. Kildare -- was intently watching her but she didn’t care.

Don’t get involved?“I spotted a couple of them,” she offered conversationally turning back to Tag, but by way of her indoor voice: the controlled timbre and fiber of which was born and bred by helping raise grandkids that had too much of their grandma’s muckraking in them.Heck, when she was raising her children there was no such thing as an indoor voice or even anything called an indoor voice but it worked well for her as a new-age grandmother.

Like a magician, Tag displayed a slow human fan that became a hand, which became splayed fingers resting on a thigh.Three fingers.

She nodded.

What the hell was going on?

The bathroom door latch snapped open.Turtlehead and Doc were looking dead ahead, patently absurd in their nonchalance.But the guy in10-B flagrantly lost interest in his cell screen: his frigging head popped up like a lobster buoy rebounding from distress.A young woman walked down the aisle.10-B watched her every inch of the way.

“I want to help,” Eva whispered to Tag, instantly committed.

He sighed, “Uh,” searched her eyes.“We can talk if, uh, if we have to when we get to the next stop.Not here, not now please,” he whispered with some need.

Charlotte was leaning forward cocking an ear like a radar dish.Eva felt an urge to knock her block off.

Things really were getting interesting.

“I’m going to Cheyenne to see my nephew,” Eva said, demonstrating her professional nonchalance and tack.“How about you?”

“Oh, y’know, uh, just going.”

A man and a little boy walked hand-in-hand down the aisle towards the restroom with the boy leading his dad who followed in a sort of hunched-over crouch.“C’mon, dad, c’mon.”Neither Turtlehead or Doc looked at the duet.

10-B did not look down at his cell.

As the two passed, Eva noticed, just at the point where the burly man’s shirt bunched up there was a weapon in a dark holster with a badge on it.The little boy with his big blue eyes was about three maybe four years old.

“Yes.”She thought so.“I can hear it in, uh, in some of your words -- say cheese.”

He didn’t smile.“I thought maybe you were from Boston?Your accent.”

“Lived there once but nope I’m a Munjoy Hill kid.Portland.One of the ten oldest cities in America.”She smiled.“We had European-style outhouses in Maine two hundred years before Wyoming knew what a civilized hopper was.”

“Um?I bet that made the Indians in Wyoming happy.”

Eva was blank for a moment; then laughed.Good one.“The proper nomenclature is Native Americans,” she said still smiling.

He smiled too.“I stand corrected.”He looked more closely at her, maybe seeing the Native American roots in her eyes and in her face --

“You’re probably right” she said.“They had two hundred more years of peeing outside before they had to sit in stinky unsanitary wooden boxes.”

He smiled, chuckled almost, and Eva could see a touch of wonder, and the other thing: she’d been beautiful and she saw this in Tag’s eyes, too.Her granddaughter said she still was --

There was the audible click again to signal the bathroom door was opening.The small door closed and the latch clicked shut. The father and son walked by.None of the suspects watched: Charlotte was pretending to read a book.

Where’d she get that hairdo, Phyllis Diller?

“Huh, I didn’t know that about Portland, Maine.Ten oldest cities thing, I mean.”

“St. Augustine in Florida is the oldest in America, and Santa Fe and Jamestown are the second oldest, 1607.Jamestown is the oldest English-speaking city.Jamestown Virginia.Course, the Anastazi, the Pueblos in Colorado and New Mexico, the cliff dwellings are way older.Live and learn.Huh?Where in Wisconsin?”

“Aw, just a small town.”

There was a quick cacophony of car horns in the fast lane -- jarring, unexpected, then gone.Tag flinched with a slight duck and shimmy.

Charlotte hissed, “Dead man walking,” under cover of the noise.

What the?

The hard words were startling to say the least, but Eva stayed focus.“Armenian, huh?”

“Huh?What?”

A young woman in short-shorts moved down the aisle to the restroom.The door latch sounded again.Doc and Turtlehead discreetly watched her as she walked by. Checking the thorax area and then traveling to southern exposures.10-B was more abrupt in his perusal of the young lady and turned to watch a backside as she passed.He caught Eva watching him (damn).His eyes bugged a little.

“My husband’s.”Eva looked over at Bug Eyes.There was a woman on the Blackberry screen and it looked like she was unbuttoning her pants.“Good Italian family from the West End.On my side I have family from Kittery to Fort Kent,” she smiled with just her lips, “and around the world and back.But my fraternal family is, ah, related to the people whose cow kicked over a lantern and burned down half of Chicago.”

The click of the bathroom door met with Bug Eyes putting his Blackberry down, and as the well-proportioned woman passed by he attached his eyeballs to her tush like a tick until she sat down and slam closed his visual portal with the end of her declarative sentence.

“Irish cows can be quite destructive.We don’t let em fly dirigibles in Maine even if they have doctorates.”

Tag looked startled for just the first letter in l-a-u-g-h, and then did that, using all five.

Eva laughed too -- she was good at it, having had a lifetime of fun-filled practice.

They talked:

Tag admitted that he was going to see family in Cheyenne and that his car had caught fire outside of Winnemucca, probably not an accident, but that was as far as he would speculate, though Eva took it from there.Tag liked knots and was a former Boy Scout.Eva liked knots and was a former girl scout.Tag belonged to the NRA.Eva belonged to the Natural Resources Council of Maine.Tag liked to write.Eva did too.In fact, she wrote a humor article for the Island Times: the title was self-explanatory: Egypt Needs Water and We’ve Got Plenty in Maine So Let’s Sell Them Some.Tag thought the article made sense -- he’d been to Egypt.

“Water will be the new black gold in a few years in many parts of the world,” Eva said.Tag agreed: “I believe you’re right.”

The nice bus driver -- Eva thought he looked a little like a younger version of Mario Andretti -- said over a loud speaker: “Green River.Green River, Wyoming, folks.Fifteen minute stop.The Gateway to the Twin Cities and Flaming Gorge.Fifteen minute stop.”

Tag glanced at Eva --

She pounced: “Time waits for no man Tag.Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

Eva figured Tag might try to shunt her politely aside, but she was of the Munjoy Hill O’Leary and LeClerc clans, representing the toughest cops, bootleggers, bouncers, waitresses, fishermen, longshoremen, firemen, and mothers Portland ever knew. Tag could use her help: he just didn’t know it yet.

“Uh, yeah, okay,” he said though his somber eyes said otherwise.

As they got off the bus she guided him gently outside of the station.When she was younger she could have beckoned firmly but now she subtly led; a hand on his arm.He surprised her a little because he could have probably outrun her but didn’t even try.Under a huge and panoramic sky, which eighty-sixed all clouds from sight -- it was frigging sizzling -- they stopped.At a little past ten in the morning it was already 93 degrees and climbing.For her that was hot.

“Gang stalking,” Tag admitted.“They’re gang stalkers.”

She’d read about the creepy vigilante blood sport on-line, and in the Portland Forecaster.“Why?”

He shrugged, looked like he was going to cough, even had the fist in place, then changed his mind and dropped his hand.“I testified against a guy in a civil case.He ploughed into a van, hit a family, father died -- reckless driving.He was doing eighty, ninety, in a thirty-five zone.The case is still, uh, goin on.”

She watched his eyes, smiled, prompting --

“Ever hear of Wallach-Hooper-Mulcher Ltd?”

“Nope.Don’t think so.”

“Multinational Corporation in California.Owns hotels, cattle ranches, real estate in the U.S., and places like Singapore, bottled water -- that top-shelf Blue Nile stuff -- some politicians, that kind of thing.”

“So this is payback, revenge?”

Tag shrugged.“A week after I testified against Pulver -- that’s his name -- my supervisor and the assistant supervisor found some pot in my mail truck.I was suspended pending the disposition of, ah, my criminal case.I’m -- was -- a mail carrier in Clark County.I work, worked out in the rural areas.Desert -- nice route.Beautiful country.Made some good friends.”His words deflated and went flat at: “Good people.”

“Was it yours?Are you saying your supervisor planted it in the truck?”

“Uh, no to both.Someone planted it.I don’t smoke pot.My supervisor -- a real lady don’t get me wrong -- is an old friend.There’s no way she did it.There was an anonymous complaint, a piece of paper on her desk.She didn’t have much choice.”

Eva liked the answer: it implied loyalty, even a sense of fair play.“It’s horrible.”

He shrugged with a brief gesture, and looked away.“It could be the corporation but most likely it’s just Pulver -- fifteen minutes isn’t a long time.Excuse me: I gotta use the, uh, bathroom.”

“A guy a couple of seats away from us has a peep camera in the hopper -- on the frigging bus,” Eva said.

He grimaced but when she met his eyes he looked away.

“The pervert is watching the action with a cell phone or a device that appears to be or is disguised as a cell phone.”

“Probably,” Tag said.“Though I don’t really know why they would.Some gang stalkers use first responder technology to locate a heartbeat through a wall.There are hand-held electromagnetic thermal imaging devices, er, a type of radar, see through the wall x-ray equipment that can find a termite in a wall.You can put one of these, uh, handheld toys on a motel wall, target the person in the next room, and accurately shoot them with microwave and ultrasonic torture guns-- called directed energy weapons -- no matter where in the room they try to hide.Some targets are even microchipped.It’s a-a nightmare.”

“My God,” she said soaking up Tag’s lament.“Microchips -- some of the perverts I’ve known in my life -- it would be utter insanity to give them the tools to see through walls.”She shook her head slowly.“How long have they been after you?”

“Six months.Every day, every night, everywhere I go.”

“What about the police?”

“What about them?”

She had nothing to say to that.

He went to the bathroom.

She got back on the bus.

Turtlehead, Doc, Charlotte, and Bug Eyes were nowhere to be seen.More than half the Greyhound was empty.As Eva neared her seat she saw Bug Eye’s Blackberry poking out from under a long-sleeved shirt, a brown something with little mountains on it, Navajo-style.She stopped, pulled a handkerchief out of her purse, coughed, covered her mouth with the inside of an elbow or the way kids in the 21st Century learned to do atPortland High School, turned, looked both ways and snatched the cell phone covering it with a handkerchief as she did so.It had been sixty some years since she’d stolen anything and that had been a Chatty Cathy doll that she gave right back (her mother made her and then spanked her silly). But, desperate times demanded desperate measures: she put the Blackberry in her purse, doing not thinking, her heart sprinting for the exits --

Eva thought of something: turned around and got off the bus even as other passengers were getting back on, including Charlotte and Turtlehead.

In the station, Eva wrote two notes with her left hand and placed both in her purse.She was right handed.

She waited until just after last call for the bus before she ever so cautiously placed the Blackberry and a note on the unmanned ticket counter.Though, the agent showed up promptly, picked up the Blackberry and the note, and looked around, he hadn’t seen Eva -- whew.She got back on the bus: they weren’t going to leave a little old lady behind.

Bug Eyes was frantically looking for his peep toy, but Turtlehead, Doc, and Charlotte seemed unperturbed.

Huh?

Green River was a clean and small town where everything seemed to have a place but if watching eyes strayed in any direction there was, well, magnificent chaos: towering tabletop buttes, sculptural/natural landscape art, Mormon Traillands permeated with supernatural colors, arid but rambunctious mountains, and A River Ran Through It.So did the train, the Union Pacific, and a freight train’s melancholy lament signaled one was either coming or going.

Bert would have loved Green River, Phil and Philbert had in fact liked and enjoyed the area during several trips out West going back to the dawn of time.

They had camped at Flaming Gorge on the Utah side, she and Phil.The Gorge was beautiful, a primeval landscape of colors and twisted seizures of sheer leaps, Martian rock formations, and water as crystal clear as the air above.They had eaten at Cruel Jack's just outside of Rock Springs on the Purple Sage Road.

It had been a breakfast to remember with good memories to keep in the bank for bad days.

Her first husband had been killed in Boston trying to stop a bar fight.A woman shot him at point blank range and in the face.Phil had been with the Boston PD for two years -- Eva slammed this door shut in her mind almost as soon as she opened it.She didn’t like to remember.She’d been so young -- devastated.It was hard to understand it then or later, to move on and get over it.

In fact, she never had.

Just as the bus entered a tunnel between Green River and Rock Springs she got zapped.A searing auger burrowed through her back and into her heart -- causing it to miss a beat.She felt a vicious heat shatter her skull.There was a following wave of nausea and profound vertigo which engulfed her.Then: a quick stab behind her eyes, piercing and burning from the outside in.She was scared -- terrified -- to the very fiber of her being and the pain was overwhelming.

“Are you all right?” Tag asked even as the pain abruptly ceased.

“No.Uh, yes.”She shuddered.It was awful.“Is, is, th-th-that what you live with?”

He nodded; his eyes weary.“You get used to it.”

“How can that be possible?”

“You do or you die.”

She looked around at her attackers.They sat stone-faced, innocent, or smirking.She wanted to choke them --

“You can’t,” Tag said, reading her mind.“You’d be arrested.They’ll have done nothing.They won’t know you or what you’re talking about.Someone will come and bail them out if they get busted, which is unlikely.They rarely go to court and never to jail.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true.They’ll destroy every part of your life.It’s, uh -- you’ve been warned -- I noticed a couple of empty seats up front.Either you’re moving to a new seat or I am -- don’t get involved.They’ll destroy your life.Don’t even think about going after them.They won’t care that you’re an old woman,” he blanched, and followed with, “uh, elderly, y’know older lady.”

“Old is okay -- I’m not moving,” she said.“There has to be something I” --

“There’s nothing you can do.They’re connected all the way to the top.”

“Something?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t go” --

“Thanks Eva.Forget about the ass -- uh” --

“You can say assholes,” she smiled, earning a glower from Charlotte with the big giant radar ears that stuck out from a pinched face with the sock-me nose on it.But, Eva had given up that kind of melodrama when she was younger or about the time she turned sixty.

“I was going to say more than that -- get off the bus the next stop.Get another one.Don’t get involved.Stay away from me.Sorry.”Tag left, unsmiling, he looked stricken, and didn’t look back.

She sat very still for a moment.The electronic attack had shaken her.She’d had no idea that such things, such weapons were even out there, that they existed.It was terrifying.That someone was sick or cruel or criminal enough to use the weapons on human beings -- on living things -- didn’t surprise her, but that they’d used them on her was a mistake. It was so wrong.So-so evil --

There was something she could do and she was already doing it.

The law would work -- she believed that.

The law would work.

A few miles past Rock Springs she moseyed past a smirking Charlotte to the restroom.You’re asking for it a voice shrieked inside of Eva’s skull: she was about ready to knock Charlotte into a redundant Monday two weeks into the future.Inside the toilet she pulled a small emergency light out of her purse.One end was a flashlight the other a flashing red light.She flipped the bathroom light off at the wall switch and turned the flashing red light on.Starting with the most likely spot, given the image on Bug Eyes’ Blackberry screen, she searched the toilet stall and found the peephole spy camera. It was no more than a tiny reflected glint hiding between the flashes of red light: unbelievably small, probably like Bug Eyes you know what.

She’d learned the flashing red light trick on TV’s McGiver.

Eva went back to her seat.

Bug Eyes was hyper, growing manic, fidgeting frantically, looking through his tote bag, and searching his seat.Turlehead, Doc, and Charlotte seemed unconcerned, though still acting as a team.But a team that did not include Bug Eyes.Eva had to entertain the idea that the three gang stalkers were not connected to the Peeping Tom.The three perps acted in concert, portrayed the same methods of action, the same modus operandi, but Bug Eyes acted outside this range of protocol (she got this particular phrase from Hawaii 5-0).

In fact, Bug Eyes acted unlike the other three in nearly every act or reaction that Eva might consider or could measure.Of course, the probability that the gang stalkers were not a part of Bug Eyes’ peeping or connected to Bug Eyes was irrelevant.It didn’t matter.They were all bad guys, all in the commission of ugly crimes, the electronic torture was horrible, and they were going down.

She waited, feeling some nervousness: don’t get up to take down the spy camera.Bug Eyesdon’t get up you frigging pervert…

There!Twenty minutes past Rock Springs the burly man and his son stood up to take a trip to the restroom.Excellente.She recited a silent prayer and returned to the toilet.Inside she stuffed a note into the toilet paper dispenser.She waited a moment, heard the man and boy outside the door, and exited.

“Powdering my old nose,” she said smiling as she passed the father and son.The father smiled back.The little boy said, “Hi.”

Eva answered, “Howdy partner,” with a pronounced western twang.

She sat down, and took a deep breath:

Next stop Rawlins.

The burly man passed back by her, little boy in tow.He glanced at her curiously.She returned his gaze innocently, just an old woman on a bus going to see her nephew’s family, just a doddering poor defenseless old woman.

The father walked his son to their seats 3-C and 3-D.He then went to the bus driver, fished his wallet out of a pocket, and flashed an ID.The two talked even as the driver did his job keeping the bus on the interstate.

The burly man came back down the aisle.He casually looked at the occupants of 9-B (Turtlehead), 10-B (Bug Eyes), 11-B (Doc), 11-C (Eva was reading National Geographic), and 12-D (Charlotte).He returned to the restroom and was in there some time.Taking pictures?Collecting evidence?Doing good police work, Eva hoped.

Bug Eyes was bug-eyed, wriggling in discomfort but the three gang stalkers showed no emotion.Eva was now fairly certain that the Peeping Tom wasn’t connected to the Gang Stalkers.But, that still didn’t make any difference to her --

The Greyhound Bus shot through John Wayne country like a silver spaceship, quick, quicker, and let’s get to Rawlins boys.Eva took in a huge lungful of A/C air, tense, smiled: mitigating her stress she fantasized talking to Tom Selleck who was dressed like her brother-in-law’s brother, Luke:“Is that a stagecoach out yonder?”Tom/Luke: “No ma’m it’s just a big rock so don’t try hitching a team of horses to it.I don’t use a horse anyway, ma’m, I drive a four-wheeler.Gitty-up ma’m” --

Then they were in Rawlins and the police were waiting.

Eva smiled: so far so good.

The law took the four perps aside.

Eva had used proof of the peeping, the discovery of the pinhole camera, as a foundation to connect the four passengers to an on-going crime.She’d written in the note that the criminals were carrying and using electronic torture weapons, and that “at least one of the remote viewing screens” could be found in the Green River Greyhound Station’s lost and found.The police could match the device up with the spy cam and match prints or ownership of record to Bug Eyes (Eva had been careful to leave no fingerprints of her own).

She didn’t believe the three gang stalkers were connected to Bug Eyes’ peeping but she didn’t think there was any evidence to justify a search of the gang stalkers given the course of normal events.So, she tied the four together in the hopes that the electronic torture weapons would then be discovered in a search of persons or luggage.

The Cheyenne Police Officer, Dave Robbins, with a Marine Corps bulldog tattooed on his forearm, questioned her as she told him that his son seemed well-behaved and had his father’s chin.He thanked her and told Eva that the boy had his mother’s eyes.Eva denied any knowledge of the Blackberry or the notes.She then asked the officer if he were sure that his son didn’t have his eyes.He said he was sure.He took her information, checked her ID, wrote down her cell number and got her nephew’s number in Cheyenne.

Investigators collected information from other passengers who were then free to go.The four perps however remained in a small alcove of the Greyhound Station, detained by the Rawlins PD.

When the last call for the bus to Cheyenne (next stop Laramie) blared out over a loudspeaker Charlotte tried to get up and leave. However, a police officer restrained the gang stalker: actually grabbed the perp’s arm.

Sometimes the law works in mysterious ways her Phil used to say, and Eva smiled wide, showing a dazzling array of her own teeth as she regained her seat.The bus left the station.Sadly, Detective Robbins and his son remained in Rawlins, given the father’s responsibilities.Eva was sorry to see them go.But, Tag appeared and sat down beside her.

Smiling wider by increments, shaking his head slowly in semi-disbelief, he said, “I don’t know how you did it but-but thanks.Thank you very much.This is the first time in six months that I haven’t been tortured, uh, harassed.” He looked around as if he thought that might change.“The very first time since I testified.”

Eva nodded.

Within the smile Tag seemed tired, exhausted.His eyes were sincere when he said, “Thank you,” again.

Eva smiled with color quickly flooding her face.“You’re welcome.”Not sure what to say and seized by a hiccup of emotion, she said this: “I-I’m old school Munjoy Hill.” She felt foolish, paused, stumbled for something glib to polish up and mount on a wall, but said without thinking: “I buried two husbands and, uh, care for a third.I raised four children and have seven grandchildren.Let’s see -- hey -- for four years I was the only Republican on the Portland City Council.”

Tag chuckled, more at ease, and replied, “You just saved a Democrat.”

“Well as long as we don’t have children it’s not a river we can’t cross” --

The mailman laughed, and it was a gut-buster. Eva joined in; really let loose, her laughter a blast furnace burning up tension and fear.

Now she was in her element --

Passengers turned to see what the ruckus was: scattered chuckles morphed into guffaws, whoops, laughter, until there was pandemonium on the Greyhound Bus --

“The words, uh, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty?”Me? Eva Chechetini? Me?

Tag nodded.“The Mother of Exiles.”

Eva began to cry softly -- just like that but with joy -- she couldn’t frigging help it.

Tag put an arm around her.

Damn if it wasn’t a good day in Wyoming, in America, all the way around.

She smiled, sniffling --

Flying east -- soaring -- aided and abetted by Rocky Mountain tail winds and no small measure of justice. Eva soaked it all up, cherished the moment, and knew it was truly a day to remember:

So she did; forever. -end-

Author’s Note:

I moved the primary Greyhound Bus Station in the Twin Cities from Rock Springs to Green River so as to better tell this story, however if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Rock Springs you can confirm that I put the bus station back.

​Please support the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights: 165 East 58 Street, New York, New York, 10022/ 212-751-4000

​

American Hockey PlayersBy Kevin O’Kendley

The 1970s was a time when American hockey players weren’t, uh, really welcomed in Canada for many, ah, reasons -- some handy theories smacked of both societal prejudice and Americans had those odd giant mustaches. Unfortunately, American hockey players were often fiercely resented in the USA too:

The National Motel Owner’s Association, for instance, banned hockey players from their establishments in 1974 because of the damage hockey skates caused in showers and on linoleum floors. So did bowling alleys. Ever see what kind of devastation ice skates inflict on freshly poured concrete? Putting greens and sand traps? How about Japanese tea gardens? Wear the skates to bed and see what happens.

Hmmmm?

So, a de facto social and cultural dynamic of oppression, odd uniforms, unemployment, personal devastation and family loss came to pass. And, as the saying goes, few things are more irksome than watching a socio-economic fight when a hockey game breaks out, so American hockey players went north. They fled across the border into Canada to work in places like Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Vancouver, and Winnipeg (though many were forced to wear numbers on their sweatshirts, knickers, and skates).

One of the busiest points of human smuggling in this epic and illegal immigration occurred between Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, where American hockey players swam across the St. Croix River under cover of darkness. Ever try to swim in hockey skates? Yep: some hockey players didn’t make it. Other illegal immigrants were traumatized for life and so stayed away from the water when it wasn’t frozen, and there’s a lot of water in Canada.

Of course, by the mid-eighties with Sweden, Norway, and Finland taking some American hockey-refugees the flash-point in Canada dwindled over time, and was finally extinguished with the advent of physical therapy and footwear collusion between mental health specialists and shoe designers. American hockey players were taught to transition from skates to softer footwear in both the public and private arenas.

The aftermath: while many hockey players came home to America many stayed home in Canada under the historic and successful American Hockey Player Illegal Alien Amnesty Program, adding to the diversity of Canada. -end-

Sidebar: A famous sportscaster from Iowa in 1982, Joe Dolly, referred to the "illegal alien Yank invaders" as wetbacks because of the St. Croix River/swimming/drowning thing. (Joe Dolly was a cousin of Dolly Parton, the musician, whose famous family included her uncle The Dolly Lama and Salvador Dolly, all originally from Tennessee.) Anyway: that's where the term wetback came from...

Grandma Bessie, a former sternman on a lobster boat, was an early environmentalist, and she told her grandson this:

Waste not, want not.And, he believed her.

So Nick Gryzbowski became a Waste Not Want Not entrepreneur and saved things:

A cat, old Life Magazines, antique license plates, tire rims from old Fords and Chevy’s, pickled alligators, nudie pictures of Bridget Bardot, goats, Rockem Sockem Robots, a piece of mahogany driftwood with the name Captain Blood whittled into the grain, an autographed picture of Jack LaLane in a jump suit, an autographed picture of President Richard Nixon in a jump suit, and autographed picture of Richard Simmons in a jump suit, a Sharp’s buffalo gun, tapes from the Golden Age of Radio, the Elephant Man’s bowtie, Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick,” many other knick-knacks unidentified and identified, and various and miraculous stuff of interest to someone somewhere sometime somehow.

Nick’s Nacks flourished inside and outside of an old post and beam barn with a dirt parking lot for ten-twelve cars and trucks depending on the size, make, and model, and/or the skill of the driver, especially during winter.The two-story barn was made of real “barn wood” which entrepreneurs all over the country would have paid good money for (so Nick considered himself lucky in that the wood actually came with the barn).The one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure was lovingly tended, sturdy, friendly, graceful, and artistic.In 2011, Nick painted the whole thing light green with dark green trim to match his old farmhouse out back, the four-room survivor of a 1932 chimney fire.

Nick was sitting at his workbench in the back room sla/sh office cleaning off a metal Coca Cola Sign from 1927, scrubbing briskly with rags and biodegradable solvents, when a call came in at 8:37.The caller inquired as to whether Nick’s Nacks had a bung hammer from, roughly, the Prohibition era.Nick did.The buyer was from Biloxi, Mississippi.Nick would “ship first class.”

At 8:42 Nick said to a Ukrainian, “I’ve been having this dream, I’m a -- I’m like a fence post in the spring floods floatin down the Penobscot River: so, by definition am I still a fence post or am I flotsam and jetsam, uh, driftwood?Will I be washed ashore or will I end up at sea?Will I ever be a fence post again?Will I float all the way, ah, to, uh, Malta?What then?Do you, uh, see what I mean?”

The Ukrainian nodded, “Da.Si.I know this story -- I am this story.You need passporte in Malta.”

​Adam Ant (the Ukrainian) was seated in a cushioned Adirondack chair from the Poconos, 30s-era, a chair Myer Lansky and Lucky Luciano had also “warmed their butts in,” though there was no “proven provenance provided by the proprietor to provoke purchase” so it remained functional in the office and not for sale.

Bohuslav was about as tall as Nick.Adam Ant had dark hair and Nick red.Adam Ant was skinny with endurance; Nick was wide but also with endurance.Adam Ant had black eyes and Nick blue.Adam Ant was an immigrant, Nick a native.Adam Ant smoked too many hand-rolled Bugles, Nick drank too much coffee; they both drank too much beer though Adam Ant did so with gusto and Nick with a little guilt especially on weekdays because on his mother’s side he was descended from Puritans.

When Adam Ant left to go to the “pust offs” in Belfast at Nick’s behest to mail stuff all over the world, Adam opened the front door, ringing the Rexall bell (circa 1892) at 8:53 a.m., or just as the cat came back in. He said to the cat in passing, “Hullo gato.”

The cat had one stiff back leg, the other was twisted; something preposterous was the matter with her spine.Nick had saved the cat in scooping up the smooshed thing with a snow shovel after it got run over by a county plow truck during another one of those one-hundred-year-snow-storms, or the third such storm that particular month.Forced by prevailing conditions, unable to reach a pet hospital, Nick fixed up the cat as best he could and nursed it through a long night.It was during this critical time that the cat developed a taste for tequila and Nick, once again, came to believe in miracles.

Grace and Luke Fenald would come over to check on the cat’s health and well-being (nobody expected “the friggin creature” to live), bringing cat food and then cat toys.Nick would make coffee for Grace and Luke but the brew was “pitiful.”So the Fenalds’ brought their own.Over time, the morning coffee experience at Nick’s became a custom attracting a growing group of friends.Since, Nick didn’t like to get up at four in the morning he eventually left the back door unlocked and folks came and went.

At 9:07 a call came in from Cleveland for an autographed AJ Foyt helmet.Nick had it.He would ship it express, and right away.

In the southeast corner of the barn were coffee percolators, air pots, a refrigerator with all accessories, etc.The regulars donated donuts, pastries, other things, and eventually there was a microwave oven and two tables with a bunch of un-matching chairs.There was an extra long couch, too, with a big woolly brown blanket over it.More than a couple of overnighters slept on that stinky behemoth, and more than once too.The dining area became affectionately known as the N&N Lounge, though there was no alcohol served, except, maybe, really late at night and then only selectively and semi-secretly.

Ssshhhhh.

Margery smoked marijuana during frequent visits to Nick Nack’s and, of course, this had over time caused “socio-cultural issues” with a few of the other regulars.The situation had been “developing for about a year with exponentially growing complaints,” even from a “couple of Unitarians” so Nick finally had to arbitrate:

Margery arrived at 9:27 a.m., twenty-seven minutes late for their prearranged “talk.”She slipped in the front door trying to “fool the bell” (to keep it from tinkling), though apparently all for naught as it did tinkle just a bit. She said, “I’m right on time.”

Nick took a deep breath because, of course, she wasn’t “right on time.”He said, “Margery you can’t smoke dope in the store because it’s illegal.”

“Ree-all-leee?”

“I checked on-line.”

“On-line?”There was a little ventriloquist laugh from this woman that scared half the men in town, especially her ex-husband who she called, “X.”

Nick chuckled.“Yeah, on-line.”

Margery checked Nick’s chuckle and raised it with a guffaw.Then she hoisted up a mysterious look that slightly warped her forehead, shaping her eyebrows into the wings of eagles gliding in for the kill --

Uh-oh --

“I just lost a lot of respect for you Nick,” Margery said, “y’know caving into the law that way.”She looked serious for a moment then undid her bird of prey eyebrow juxtaposition-thing returning to more gentle though undependable crescents.She laughed flute-like or oboe-like or like some kind of woodwind instrument: light and fluffy with a little squeak --

Was she stoned?

Nick had known Margery since the second grade and he’d always hoped a little, sometimes more than a little, that -- you know -- something good might happen -- you know -- at some point between the two of them.But, at last count he’d been waiting over twenty years:

However, marijuana was out and that was just the way it had to be, even if the Unitarians hadn’t complained, and they were very patient people.

It wasn’t just pot that illustrated Margery’s domestic viewpoint.She was a hellion.She was a rabble-rouser, the go-to firecracker in any debate --

The cat came back in so ergo it must have gone out.The cat had her own door that had, over time, been shared by a couple of raccoons and a skunk.So the miniature cat door was eventually locked at night, though not always.Anyway: the cat had something on her whiskers.It was greenish whatever it was, and moldy, almost other-worldly with disgusting non-pretentions.

A day earlier: Alexander Nagy and Phyllis Rueben had been talking about herons, falcons, hawks, and eagles when Margery wedged a neo-history lesson in the middle of all the competing consonants:

“Benjamin Franklin,” she said, “wanted the turkey as our national emblem because most of the European, uh, powers used eagles: y’know because they didn’t have any indigenous turkeys in Europe or at least not the ones with wings.”She added with a smile that feathered into a leer, “I continue to support the turkey as a national emblem no matter what the cost.”

Nick smiled in memory and Margery caught him.She smiled back, however it was unlikely she knew what he was smiling about.She punctured the thought balloon over his head with a knowing smile but of course not literally.He smiled in defense of his position, whatever it was.

A call came in at 9:59 from Denver.A history professor at C.U. needed a Swiss cuckoo clock wherein the musical chime was Love Me Tender.Nick’s Nacks had only one in stock.However, Nick would ship third class -- the Colorado history department being on a budget and unable to dicker much --

The cat walked out the door with clean whiskers leaving behind the little slapping sound of the plastic door (schlap) reasserting itself.

Seated in a deep cushion TV chair older than he was, thirty-something Sean Widgery, a courthouse clerk with a penetrating reportorial mien, and Al Santini, a carpenter with Popeye forearms, must have come in when Nick was yacking on the phone.Al was making himself a cup of coffee under an autographed illustration of Ferdinand the Bull: then, he stuffed a bill -- was it a five? -- in the “donations jar,” which was an important part of the refreshing of the funds of the “refreshment selection.”The carpenter had always been a generous fella: his friends knew that he’d give his “last buck to anyone that needed it more than he did” and panhandlers and Nick could always depend on him.

The lithograph over the Mr. Coffee percolator was interesting in that the signee wasn’t the author of the Spanish folk story but rather The Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta, former middleweight champion of the world.No one had yet called Nick asking if they could buy this work of art most likely because few (outside of the late Nat Fleishman) even knew it existed.However, it was an interesting historical comment created by a very interesting American artist.

Anyway: Sean was telling Al something about statistics “generally speaking y’know,” detailing size and scope with examples and question marks and exclamation points, when Margery butted in and said this:

“A govmint statistician figured if he took his clothes off and a woman wouldn’t honk his, uh, male appendage she was a lesbian” --

“So, lissen -- lissen -- he determines that 51% of the town are lesbians, including his wife.So, ah, the gross exposure and lack of adequate stimuli of the, uh, specific subject brought about conclusions that were predicated on faulty criteria.The conclusions were accurate within the context of the, uh, the vehicle of judgment, the man with the, ah, misguided and misinformed wee wee. However in truth the statistician’s findings proved only that the women of the town had good sense, including the guy’s wife.Thusly, 51% of the population of the town were sensible, which in a small way was a comment on the remaining 49% -- y’know if you believe in statistics that is.”

There was a long undisturbed moment of absolute silence, and then:

“How?What?Was -- I don’t agree,” Sean countered with stunned humor playing along the lines of his rosy face. Naturally this led to a two-hour debate inside of fifteen minutes on government in general, taxation of all kinds, the rule of law, the Constitution, same day voter registration, statistics, “the refugees from Central America,” and finally Sean went back to work mentally exhausted leaving half of his tuna fish sandwich behind.The bachelor almost tripped on the cat as he struggled off, spiritually beaten to a pulp by the most feared woman in Waldo County --

The cat now had something reddish on its whiskers.

Nick failed to follow some of Margery’s story by design, simply wondering where she came up with all of her crap.He smiled: the other 49% aren’t lesbians? What the?They’re the men of the town? What?

“Speaking of statistics,” she said, “did you know -- Nick -- that in Russia one hundred and ten people own thirty-five percent of all real wealth?Where’s Adam Ant?”

Nick smiled.“It’s not his fault.He’s from Ukraine.”

“Yes.At the end it was called Ukraine but before that it was part of the Soviet Union.”

“Okay Margery but Ukraine isn’t Russia -- and it was always called Ukraine.”

She scratched an ear then pulled the lobe (she wasn’t wearing earrings).“It does and he is a good man -- uh, why does he mix up English for Spanish?”

“He came to this country through Argentina.First stop in America was New Orleans.Ever hear him say, ooh la de dah?He means ooh la la -- he picked that up in Louisiana.”

She smiled.“From the Ukraine to Argentina to New Orleans to Maine?”

“Yes.There were some shorter stops I think.”

“Huh?”

A call came at 10:27 wherein the caller asked about a black umbrella that once belonged to Winston Churchill.Sure enough Nick’s Nacks had the very one in question.Nick said he would ship to Oxford, England, economy air.The caller, a lady (or a man with a high-pitched House of Lords voice) had a musical accent and Nick enjoyed her verbiage -- meter, warmth, and intent.When she ended their conversation and said “cheers” he got to say “cheers” back.

It was great.

He hung up the “beisbol” telephone, signed by Luis Tiant, and was smiling briskly as he sauntered backed into the store --

Where Al Santini was chuckling as he sipped his coffee: he often said that “Margery was a riot” and it appeared he was revisiting this belief --

As Margery began to brush her blonde hair in a mirror mounted over the pastries (under an antique Hostess Cup Cake glass cover), just to the side of the Mr. Coffee Percolator --

“One hundred and ten people control thirty-five per cent of all the real wealth in Russia,” Margery told Adam Ant.

“I’m from Ukraine not Russia.”

“Oh.”Turning back to the general melee, Margery told Al, “I see you’re voting for Randy Smith for state senate.”

Uh, oh, Nick thought.

“Yeah.Yes.”

“You know Al,” Margery pontificated rounding her lips, “what Randy or any other friggin American does in the privacy of his or her own home is their business however for the sake of anecdotal story telling we’ll describe a situation wherein, uh, after being rebuffed by his wife, repeatedly, someone by the name of Randy Smith had a lascivious dream, and, uh, in the dream he was that movie star, ah, Zach Galifianakis, a guy Randy’s wife’s crazy about.However,” Margery waxed theoretically pedantic for no good reason at this point, “during a subsequent rigorous act of dream love with Randy as Mr. Galifianakis Randy’s wife cried out, ‘Randy:’” Margery said this next part while smiling at Nick, “‘Randy.Randy.My love’” --

“Oookaay,” Nick grinned uncomfortably, interrupting --

“’I knew it,’ ol’ Randy says,” Margery said smiling like the Mona Lisa. “‘Even though she was with Zach Galifianakis she called my name.’”Margery looked around the room and made eye contact with everyone.“Of course Randy is now emboldened and, ah, gains some small measure of comfort.That night Randy goes after his wife.He’s standing by the bed, wearing -- well we don’t want to know what he’s wearing -- he smiles seductively and suggestively at his, um, mate of nine years.”

The men in the room were all listening now though there was a low muttering of escapism --

“Well, fellas,” Margery poked her eyes around the room again, “Randy’s wife took one look at her husband, knew exactly what he wanted and said, ‘You must be dreaming’” --

Beer barrel polka laughter bounced off all the walls --

“That’s when Randy,” Margery said, “decided to run for public office because he wasn’t about to quit dreaming.”She did a little dance mostly with revolving arms and sang out: “Go Randy.Go Randy.”

“Go Rundy, go Rundy,” Adam Ant joined in.

Al hooted, smiled wide; then laughed with other vowels.He had excellent teeth.

A call came in at 11:32 from Topeka.A museum curator wanted used peanut shells from a 1981 interview between Barbara Walters and Nancy Reagan in a Montana bar, “that saloon that had forty-two different kinds of draft beer and a full-size stuffed moose.”The enquirer apologized inasmuch as the request was unusual, maybe even absurd, but Nick said, “Not to worry.I have a whole bag.”He would ship to Kansas overnight.

The front door opened accompanied by this familiar noise: ding-ding.

Jervis Lutwin came inside, hesitantly, even as the cat exited.The former M.I.T. professor and electronic torture victim’s eyes were haunted, blood shot, and he had the whole facial tick thing going on: “Any of t-t-those burritos f-from yesterday s-s-s-still in the refrigerator?”

“Sure,” Nick said.“Help yourself Jerv.There’s plenty of the mild sauce in there too.”

Greetings were made all the way around. Margery and Nick set up a sausage-egg burrito and a large glass of 2% milk with a blue plastic top for the “electronically tortured Professor.”There was also a couple of gallons of “real milk” in the frig with red plastic tops, though the symbolism was more coincidental than anything else.

“Thanks, Nick,” Jervis smiled.“Thanks Margery.”

“You’re welcome Jerv.”

“How goes the war Professor?” Margery asked.

Jerv twitched, his right eye blinking a couple of times.He shuddered slightly, sucked in a lungful of air, and said, “Good,” and started coughing --

Hacking away.

“How, uh, writeeng going?” Adam Ant asked.

The Professor shrugged.“Had a line on a dishwashing job over at the, uh, the, uh, that place across from Delvino's” --

“Traci’s Café?” Nick asked.

“Yes -- fell through, hired someone else.”

“Too bad,” Margery said.“They have a real nice artsy-fartsy poster in there that Nick doesn’t have.Remember: Oprah and Katie Couric in that roller derby movie?Queen Latifah, Taylor Swift, and Tom Waits did the music, great harmony on Three Blind Mice.”

“You made that up,” Nick stated, unsure.

Margery smiled.“Da, si.”

At 12:16 a call came in from Paris, France, the caller knew it was a long shot but inquired as to whether Nick had the first American addition to the plans of the Statue of Liberty as the Smithsonian did not.The Frenchman spoke excellent English but as it turned out he was from New Jersey so it didn’t count inasmuch as almost everyone in Jersey speaks English.

“Well, yes, we do,” Nick said with a sense of pride.“Yes we do.”

He would ship to the Louvre in France, courrier d’air.

Jerv suddenly fell off his chair, spilling his milk.But, Al and Adam Ant put him back on the couch and gave him another glass of milk with an “it’s okay buddy.”

But, the Professor continued, smiling: “My theory was that conspirators were trying to make honey bees impotent.Unable to procreate thereby ruining our native cross-pollination process necessitating the importation of fertile queen honey bees from elsewhere.But from where?”He shrugged expansively.“If we knew that we would know who would stand to gain by this perversion, think about the honey bee blight?They’ve been disappearing all over America, dying out” --

“Outregious,” Adam Ant said.

Margery looked pointedly at Nick.

“He’s only half joking now,” Nick told her.

At 1:22 a call came in from Washington DC asking for cigar butts from the Mae West collection.Nick said he’d ship via two-day: however the cache was in an old W.C. Fields foot locker filled with Cubanos. Did the buyers want the full size cigars too?The prospective purchaser, the Smithsonian, settled on a Red Sox overnight bag as the interior container in an overnight box though they asked Nick to please not tell any Yankee fans about the mode of “transversal in the transaction” as they were a neutral museum.

Transversal?

There was a tumultuous racket outside on the highway, skidding, a car horn, rapid bips and a blare.Everyone inside filed outside to see what the commotion was.A lady, Betsy Ross, not the one that made the first Continental flag but the one whose father used to be the police chief in Bangor, hurried towards Nick.Margery grabbed Nick’s hand --

Nick glanced at Margery.

“I’m sorry,” Betsy Ross wailed, though not for sewing the first Continental flag with the stars in a circle because she didn’t do that.She was known, however, for doing a great rendition of Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit in nightspots from Eastport to Belfast to Portsmouth to Cape Cod.“I think I ran over your cat,” she said breathlessly (Betsy was a descendent of Underground Railroad refugees, though she was not known to flaunt this fact as either a braggart or amateur historian).

Adam Ant was on the move, closed in on the mangled corpse some fifty feet away, and yelled, “It’s, ah, uh, it’s a -- how you say -- Gee Eye Moe doll.” He stooped to pick up the raggedy figure and shook it overhead for everyone to see.“No, uh, gato.”

Margery squeezed Nick’s hand.“It’s not the cat,” she said softly.She turned and said to Adam Ant, “Gato is Spanish.The correct terminology is cat.And, it’s a G.I. Joe action figure, not Moe.”

“Oh.No Moe cat?”

“What?It’s still a cat.Wha-huh?Ah, no -- it’s cat not gato but what you have in your hand isn’t a cat.”

Upon further investigation it was revealed that the plastic action figure was probably a Lou Ferrigno doll, or at least according to a common consensus settled by The Professor between a bout of frenetic twitching, when he said, “I don’t know if it is or isn’t.”

Nick studied the discombobulated action figure, shook his head, and said to Margery with a wink in his voice, “Father Time is the mother of all action figures.” She squeezed his hand again.Nick searched the white cotton pulls of passing clouds in the crisp blue sky --

Margery still had his hand, which flabbergasted him and left him a little shaky --

“St. Nick,” Margery said with a definitive rise in audio octaves.She threw her arms around the surprised Waste Not Want Not proprietor.What the?Then she gave him a big fat kiss on the lips, just like that.Sure, some gossipers said, they saw a tongue or two dart out like small pink mice in the subsequent interaction, but of course this has never been confirmed nor will it ever be, at least not in this story.

There’s such a thing as privacy you know.

Surprised.Delighted.Even Stunned.Nick said with real gusto, “Man, that was worth the wait.”

The next day at 7:22 a.m., the “substitute boss” Adam Ant was forced by “unusual circumstances” to open up Nick’s Nacks without Nick for only the second time in his nineteen months there:He was humming Billie Holliday’s Them There Eyes as he moseyed around.Hmmm?What was that strong odor?Hmmmm?“La Cannabis?” Then: “Margery,” he said with a game point volley in his voice.

And then: “Margery,” again, but with laughter this time.

Calming, the Ukrainian-American said cheerfully, “Buenas dias,” to Mr. Coffee.The coffee maker said nothing but the Cat meowed with a high-pitched accent on the upbeat, kind of like Oh When The Saints Go Marching In.She left the building without slamming the cat door behind her: shhlap, shhlap went the little flap and the cat was gone.

Adam Ant favored strong Turkish coffee, the kind where the spoon stands on end in the pitch black liquid just as it might in an equal amount of cement.He liked his Joe in a glass with no handle, a “custom among some nomadic and southern peoples,” Margery claimed and Adam suspected.

“You gots to be kiddings me!” he said in wonder.In the last twelve hours calls had come in from all over the world: Mumbai, Beijing, Berlin, Jerusalem, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Burbank, Iowa City, Indianapolis, Boulder, and an inquiry from Moscow (Russia not Idaho) asking about everything from simple Argentine bolos to the extreme New England (circa 1650) “self-punitive chastity belts for men.”

“Huh?”

Bad Vlad Putin had called hunting an old guillotine from the French Revolution, a “crowd control device” which Nick had advertised in Uncle Henry’s Magazine (Margery referred to it as a “marital aid”).President Putin had been forced to leave a message, though, since, well, Nick and Margery were, ah, extremely busy for most of the night and were not returning calls.

Then: Adam Ant came across a second message left by “Vladimir Rast Putin” and with a widening smile, which announced INSPIRATION in upper case letters (redundant), he erased both messages.

Yes he did and just like that too.

No foolin, the Ukrainian immigrant was really buying into all that crap about being an American.He loved free speech: his.

Extending a middle finger, a custom he picked up while driving a cab in Boston, Adam Ant said, “I believe in term limits El Presidente.” Chuckling, presumably at his own wit, he added, “You’ve just been deleted by a gay Ukrainian.”

Through the open office window Adam Ant could hear the passing automotive puts and sputters on the highway, the call of a chickadee, then two, an angry chitter of a squirrel, a distant cow er-fog-horn no cow, some crows (warning potential road kill of: “caw, caw, caw” in the Maine fashion), and Margery and Nick laughing in the farmhouse, but of course with something new and kind of secret in the laughter.

Brrriinnng: at exactly 8 a.m. a call came in from Hong Kong.A female voice, Su-an, with a southern Chinese accent, was phoning from the Danish Embassy looking for a strategic part of, “Hmmm, ah, um, Wan Li Chang Cheng” --

“Yes, very good -- a section missing since the Yuan Dynasty -- it was probably Irish and Welsh berserkers that absconded with the tonnage, though, ah, uh, the Scots may have been involved, too.”

“Si,” the immigrant mused as he listened to the low murmur of musical voices coming from the farmhouse.Adam Ant chuckled (as he later wrote to his mother in Istanbul) “with pride and fondness for my new home, friends, and being a part of history while listening to the copulation melodies of my fellow Americans” --

There: right next to Nick’s home was a retaining wall of sun-baked Chinese bricks that Nick claimed were more than “two thousand friggin years old” --

“Meow.”Shlap-shlap --

“Can you help me?” Su-an, the lady from Hong Kong, asked half a world away.

Adam Ant hoisted up his American smile and answeredeversojoyously:“逗 你 应 该 问.”

A six-wheeled Saracen pushed into the low hanging mist, burrowing slowly into the Falls Road section of Belfast.The armored troop carrier bore down upon a crowd of mostly women and children dressed by the hand of poverty from the colors of the Irish dusk.Some of the tribe fled the street.Some found cover behind a handful of parked cars.Others stayed to jeer the occupying army, their hatred stronger than their fear.

As the Saracen rolled on, oblivious of the obscenity shouting housewives and children, several wee boys began throwing pieces of paving blocks at the enemy.The stones bounced off the steel sides of the armored car.

Inside the Saracen a teenager screamed: "Bloody taigs!"

Grimly laughing, two wee boys took up position in the roadway, a block ahead of their target.The heroes waited until the last moment to heave their missiles, then scattered:the older scampered safely to the curb but the younger slipped and fell --

The Saracen ran over the nine-year-old --

The child's head exploded beneath heavy tires.A stifled cry of terror at the end of make believe died in the boy's mind when he did.

Without slowing the armored car disappeared around a corner.

The surviving hero stumbled backwards into a swarm of screaming children and women.The twelve-year-old’s mind was blank and uncomprehending; then overwhelmed, a flashflood in the desert.

In frenzied panic the kid scrambled through the crowd to the hero's side where he squatted, still for a heartbeat, as he surveyed his cousin’s death.The wee boy gently pieced together the ruined face transplanting pieces of the dead hero’s head from the corrupt puddle to a half bowl of skull --

The child’s hands were quickly soaked in blood and white specks and gray slime --

Tears drowned the boy’s vision and his sudden high-pitched keening pierced the wails of the ghetto women who were screaming ever louder in heartbreak and rage --

In cap and over-sized coat an older kid grabbed the smaller, yanked him upright, got an arm around his head and took him away.The boy wept as he stumbled and fought his raggedy benefactor all the way around the block, but the older kid was stronger.

A few streets away, automatic weapons fire broke out in a staccato of pops.To a child's ear the gunfire sounded unreal, muted and tinny, not at all like a Yank action movie.

By the end of the day, small arms fire was swallowed by the cacophony of war, and mushroom explosions with black funnels of smoke mixed with billowing obsidian clouds.Under boiling skies, Catholic and Protestant families sought fragile refuge with devastation and death down the block or just outside the door.

By nightfall, the two refugees were out of the neighborhood and safe by the docks:

Dirty, scared, but warm and well-fed, the transformed wee men sat on steel milk crates in 1969 in the kitchen of the seaman’s mission on Corporation Street drinking mugs of hot tea with milk and sugar.

From grief-swollen slits, the wee hero searched the older’s eyes and spoke his first full sentence since morning:

He slowed, stopped.A gusting breeze was zig-zagging at odd angles up towards the camp where Yaz had gone.The air was heavier, damper, and colder than the day before.Winter was coming.

One day at a time, brother, one freaking day at a time.

There were miniature hand prints in a damp patch on the trail.Uh-oh, the flying monkeys areback.He smiled: or it was that pesky raccoon. The tracks weren’t there thirty minutes ago.I hope the little bastard didn’tsteal the tractor.Irv hadn’t actually seen the thief yet --

He started uphill in his usual brisk pace:

The big man stepped out from under the two-hundred-year-old spruce and pine, within a thick stand of mixed conifers, emerging from the shade of forest dusk into a bright afternoon sunlight.Squinting, he adjusted to the light as he followed the trail through the puckerbrush to the clearing --

A stranger was kneeling on one knee and scratching Yaz under the chin.The big Chinook wasn’t overly friendly with most folks; it wasn’t that he was mean because he wasn’t but he was reserved, skeptical.Yet, there he was playing lap dog.Interesting: Yaz had a good nose about people.

“He tell you to call me Swervin Irvin?” Irv asked, closing the distance between them, curious at the unfamiliar sight of a singularly unusual man.

“He did.”

“It’s a joke.You can call me Irv -- who’re you?”

“Daniel.”Maybe in trying to be social or just nonthreatening the stranger added with a little propulsion, “You can call me New Guy.”He smiled.

Irv smiled in return.“Okay new guy -- what if we get another new guy.How do I tell you two apart?”

The stranger searched Irv’s face, found something he liked in the repartee, smiled wide, relaxed a degree or two, made a decision and said, “Daniel is good.”

“Okay Daniel.”

The two men shook hands.Yaz watched this act of custom with interest and a wagging tail.The big dog, a member of an AKC breed created nearly a century earlier by a Maine musher back from Alaska and on his way to Antarctica, was wearing an orange collar.Irv stooped to scratch the dog behind his ears.

The new guy was in new clothes: tan Carhartt coat, tan boots, and jeans or in fact dressed much like Irv, though Irv’s gear was older, frayed, worn, and Irv was wearing orange ball cap.Huh?Daniel had an orange hat stuffed into his rear pocket.

Teddy came out of the nearest cabin, slammed the door nice and loud.He’d been to town, Irv could tell, because he was dressed like he was ready for a day in the woods but wearing a black necktie, loose around his thick neck.He advanced slowly on the two men, a kindly Two-Ton Tony Galento smiling broadly.“Two pees in a pod,” he said.

“What?” Irv asked.

“Daniel is the new guy that’s gonna be workin with you this winter.”Teddy bent down to scratch Yaz on the head.“He’s got good all-round experience.He’s a stranger to cold weather, uh, snow but he’ll learn from you what not to do” --

Irv blanched, recovered, looked past the two men for the freaking privacy he wouldn’t find in, at least, that moment of time.“Thanks Daniel,” he said, kicking it out of his mind: one day at a time.“I think Teddy means -- how tall are you?”

“Well, uh, six feet six.”

“I’m six-six and a quarter.So that can’t be the two pees in a pod thing.”

“No.You are taller,” Daniel smiled.

“Uh, how old are you Daniel?

“Thirty-one.”

“Well, it can’t be that I’m thirty-two.”

Daniel was smiling wide now.“No, you are older so it can’t be that either.”

“Got a sense of humor, Daniel?”

“I suppose -- yes.Teddy told me that I had a sense of humor on the drive up here from Portland.He said I reminded him of someone.”

“Well, it can’t be that then cuz Teddy tells me all the time that I don’t have a sense of humor.”Irv looked at his brother-in-law and asked, “Whattya mean two pees in a pod, Teddy?”

Teddy answered, simply, “Daniel, uh, Daniel lost his family too.”

Irv peered at Teddy; then turned to face Daniel, and said slowly, “I’m sorry for your loss -- very much so.”

“Thank you Irv.”

Irv nodded, tired.“Teddy is an instigator.He likes things out front.Says he doesn’t like odd facts sneakin around y’know like rats in a woodpile.”Irv pushed on, the moment was getting ponderous.“Except there’s a difference between being transparent and telling a guy he stinks like the dirty butthole of a goat” --

“I married that guy’s sister,” Teddy said.

Daniel laughed politely, a politician’s short cough.

“We have to do a good job for Teddy,” Irv said, “he can’t work for anyone else cuz he’ll get fired.He can’t run for mayor cuz no one will vote for him.And if I don’t keep things runnin good around here my sister will divorce him.”

“Oh yes.I see.We really need to do our best to take care of Teddy then,” Daniel chorused, “we are here for Teddy.”

Teddy shook his head, and muttered, “Two pees in a pod.”

“That’s about the size of it Daniel.You be joinin us for supper Teddy?”

Irv snorted.“I really do wear the vest from last Christmas around the house.Make sure to tell her.Oh yeah, when the termite guy came I wore the tie.”

“Okay then.”Teddy’s hand first got lost in Irv’s and then in Daniel’s.“Take care of each other you two -- you take care of both of em Yaz.”Teddy mounted up, pulled away in his new Dodge 4x4 accelerating quickly, driving too fast on the sloppy dirt road and loving it if Irv knew Teddy at all.

“So you came up through the, uh, Catholic Resettlement Program out of Portland right?Irv knew that a new guy was on the menu, and soon, but Daniel was a surprise.

“Yes.Teddy came to get me -- I’m ready to work.”

“Good.We’ll be busy this winter.”Irv took a deep breath.“There’s thirty cabins, the main lodge, the marina, all closed in the winter.We have a few hunters and hikers left at the lodge but the cabins are already closed up.We’re off the grid -- we do it all.We keep the road open, too.Last year there were three of us, this year it’ll be just you and me.”

“Very good,” Daniel said in a British fashion.

Irv smiled.“You just missed Thanksgiving.”

“I had it at St. Dominic’s -- in Portland.I was very thankful.We had a lot to eat.”

It was in the way and in the howof what Daniel said that touched Irv.Yes this man was thankful and had enjoyed his Thanksgiving -- Irv had no doubt.“C’mon in.”

“Yes.”

On the porch:“Have you seen the resort yet?”

“No.”

“We’re about a mile away as the crow flies but maybe twice that by road.The resort is north of us on Chesuncook Lake.We’ll take a drive tomorrow.”Irv opened the front door for the new guy.

“There are many many trees here,” Daniel said, standing on the porch and searching the vista following the sweep of his hand with a defined interest under a cliff of forehead.“Many different kinds of trees.”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess there are -- Maine’s got a lot of trees.”

Daniel: “Good.I like trees.”

They went inside.

The camp consisted of three log-built buildings arranged in a triangle.The re-finished bunkhouse was prominent with a new steel roof.A storage garage that could handle two pickups and a front-end loader was at the apex of the triangle.The third building contained living quarters for one.Two six-hundred gallon propane tanks squatted behind the bunkhouse.

Daniel reclined in a deep-cushioned Adirondack chair in the main room of the old timber-crew bunkhouse.He said, “Teddy let me pick which room.That was okay?”

Yaz was tired and plopped down on his bed a few feet from Daniel.

“Yep.Anyone you want.In fact you can use both.I live in the other cabin -- beer?We got Sea Dog, Shipyard, Bray’s.”

“Uh, yes, a Yank lager?”

“Pale ale?”

“Yes please.”

Irv grabbed a couple of beers --

The big room was neat, everything had a place.The interior walls were log and mortar, glazed with poly.There were some antlers, old-hand-made snow shoes, framed outdoor prints,and a couple of antique black powder rifles hanging on the walls.On the side wall dividing the bedrooms, bathroom, and storage room from the main room were historical photographs, Civil War shots, narrow gauge trains, stagecoaches, pictures of nineteenth century Bangor, logging drives down the Penobscot River, and several shots of Teddy Roosevelt at Moosehead Lake and other places of interest with guides Wilmot Dow and Bill Sewall. The floor was slatted old pine, heavy with knots, shiny and waxed with half-a-dozen thick throw rugs here and there.There was a large fireplace of river rocks at one wall and a big Comforter wood stove in the middle of the room.

“You see the TV and the books but we don’t have cable.” Irv pointed with his nose to the stocked book shelves covering half a wall.“We got DVDs and old tapes.At the bottom there.My sister buys the DVDs that’s why we’ve got so many Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Denzel Washington movies.There’s no porno, or movies where dogs or horses get killed” --The big generator,” Irv continued, interrupting himself, “propane, five thousand watts pumps the well water up into gravity feed holding tanks in the storage room for both cabins, hot and cold.Sometimes we have trouble in the other cabin but never in here.Freezes up.We got some solar lights.K-1 lamps.We can run full electricity when we want but mostly we don’t to save on propane, and the noise gets to you even though the genny’s in the garage.You got propane monitors in the rooms, in the kitchen there, the bathroom.Think you can get used to Shangri La?”

“Yes.It is very good.I -- we never had electricity.Uh, no power.”

Irv smiled, nodding.“Well I got power when I need it so I guess Teddy wasn’t talkin about that when he said we were two pees in a pod.”

“Guess not,” Daniel smiled back.

“Wood was cut and split last summer and the summer before -- we keep it dry in the garage.That locker, Cabelas, over there, is a gun case.I keep it locked.Regular deer season is over.Black powder season’s just startin.So, you still need to wear orange.”

“Yes, Teddy told me.”

“You have a problem with hunting?It’s okay if you do.Different strokes for different folks.”

Irv chuckled.“Well I use a plain old 30-30 -- in the pantry we got a big freezer, runs on propane like the refrigerator.We have venison -- I got my deer this year.”He grabbed a couple Bray’s Pale Ale’s where he’d left them on the counter, handed one to his guest, and sat down across from Daniel in the same kind of chair his guest was sitting in.“Too early for supper but not for happy hour.”

“Happy hour?”

“Uh, a couple of beers and you’re happy.”

Daniel nodded.“Are you a Catholic like Teddy, Irv?” the African asked.

That was a Teddy-kind of straight-forward question that caught Irv a little bit by surprise, a personal question he normally didn’t like answering.“No.Besides no one is like Teddy.”

Daniel smiled.“I agree Teddy is unique.I didn’t think anyone would sponsor me. Teddy said to me, ‘You survived the lion’s den, Daniel, now let’s see if you can survive a Maine winter.’”

Irv nodded smiling faintly, hearing Teddy through Daniel’s words, but decided to leave any question regarding the lion’s den until he knew Daniel better.He targeted the first dust-up, though, with this: “You a Catholic Daniel?”

“No.No.In South Sudan there are many Catholics and Anglicans -- what you call the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.So I know many.I am maybe what you call an animist, when I have the time.Do you know what that is?”

“Yep.The old gods of Africa, or Ireland, Scotland.We have a new senator with the first name of Angus, the old Irish god of love -- Angus Og -- so I’m hopin we’re gonna have a little more lovin in the senate and less fightin.We need some love in Washington.”

“Yes.Love is a good thing.”

“It is Daniel.It is.”

The African nodded firmly; then slowly and hesitantly added, “Will this -- my religion -- be an issue with us?”

Irv chuckled.Daniel seemed to be getting all the tough stuff out of the way early.“No, not in this country Daniel.The First Amendment.You can speak your mind and practice your faith as you see fit, especially around here.Uh, unless you’re into sacrificing dogs and television sets.”Irv looked at Yaz asleep, snoring softly.

Daniel chuckled. “I love dogs but not for sacrificing or eating -- I never had a television set.”

“Yeah, I guess you’d need electricity for electronic stuff.”

“And a satellite dish.”

“Well, we don’t have a freakin satellite dish either so you should feel right at home.”

Daniel chuckled.“Yes.That’s right.Uh, how do you sacrifice a television set?”

“Read a book or listen to NPR.”

The African chuckled.“Yes.Very good.NPR?”

“The radio.”

Daniel: “Ah.”

Irv: “Funny, yes, I’m sort of an animist too.There’s a big shaggy gray birch bout half a mile from here.I spend a lot of time talkin to him.I call him Hairy.I haven’t actually prayed to the freakin old guy yet but I asked for a favor or two -- so far nothin.”

“Yeah.Bottled in Naples, Maine.Bray’s Brew Pub is a ways from here but maybe we’ll get down there this winter -- my sister autographed Charlotte’s Web and gave it to me when we were kids.”

“Yes.”

“You speak excellent English Daniel.”

“Thank you.English is my language, our language in South Sudan -- it is Arabic in the north, in the Sudan.I speak Swahili too, some other dialects.Swahili is good because I first came through Kenya.”

“I’ll bet you have a story there, huh?”

“Yes. Yes.You know President Obama’s father was from Kenya?”

“Yep.His mother was from Missouri -- typical American.”

They both smiled, and nodded.

Two pees in a pod.“Daniel,” Irv said, “I can handle the English if you don’t go too fast.”

Daniel laughed. “Okay.” The African was no stranger to beer or he took to it right away as he downed a long savoring swallow.Then, he said, “Teddy told me that you are a scholar.A teacher.”

“I was.”Teddy talks too much.“I work here now.”

“I was a teacher also.”

Irv: “Really?What did you teach?”

Daniel: “Math.Science.”

“Well, I guess we’re not the two pees in a pod thing cuz I taught history.”

Daniel: “So: we are not -- Teddy told me that you play basketball.You had a scholarship to the Maine college.I play too.”

“Yeah I play or did.”Teddy talks too much.“It’s called the University of Maine, uh, at Orono.I was a small forward.”

“Small?I played when I could.Ah, our lives were complicated sometimes -- where I am from.I played center -- the Catholics put up a court.Dirt but smooth.We played barefoot when I was young.”

Irv nodded.“I played forward and some guard -- we wear sneakers, have to play indoors around here in the wintertime so that we don’t freeze our nuts off in our shorts.”

Daniel laughed.“Guess we are not pees in the pod again Irv.”

Irv grinned.“Guess not.Manute Bol is from The Sudan.”

“Yes.There are many good basketball players.”

Irv pointed with his beer:“There’s a radio over there, and a ham radio too.You can play CDs or listen to Mike & Mike and Sabrina Z.We’ve got country western, rock ‘n roll, R & B, Bob Marley -- not the reggae guy but the comedian -- all kinds of stuff even classical.I got a CD player and TV out in the shack so all this stuff is mainly for you.We got a little Honda -- runs on gas -- out in the garage for mornin coffee, the DVD player, radio, won’t handle the pump or any of the big stuff but it’s quiet.You can listen to the radio in here and not hear the little genny at all.”

“Very good.”Daniel looked down at the floor, maybe overwhelmed for a moment, and then up at Irv.“Thank you -- you are a, a kind host.”

Irv didn’t know what to say so he said: “Uh, yeah, well, uh, that’s a nice thing to say -- wanna another beer.”

“Yes.”

Irv fired up the wood stove, the wood and newspaper were all ready to go, and -- voila with a match -- they were on their fourth beers apiece.Somehow and in some way the time had gone somewhere…

They were drinking Shipyard and Seadog, trying the heavier ales but even as the evolving conversation touched upon many things they steered away from the serious stuff.They had all winter --

“It is better that I tell you now so that you know the pertinent facts in case you decide that you don’t want me here,” Daniel suddenly said.He took an audible breath.“I am under, ah, a, a kind of death sentence.Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army” --

“That nut job in the Congo or Uganda?”

Daniel nodded.“Very good.”

“Well, he better not show up here.We’ll put him in a squirrel suit and toss him to the coy dogs.”

“Yes.”Daniel laughed.“Yes that would be good.”

Irv chuckled. “We’ll paint him red, call him an apple and feed him to the bears.”

“Yes. We will dress him like a fig and feed him to the, uh, what other animals do you have?”

“We’ll put him in a trout suit and feed him to a fisher.”

“Yes!We will dress him in a garbage suit and feed him, ah -- to whatever you got like hyenas.”

“We got raccoons as big as hyenas.Monstahs.”

“Raccoons then.”

“Yes.Now you got it Daniel -- hey, why is Kony in the South Sudan?Isn’t that out of his stompin grounds?”

“He goes where he wants.Murders who he wants.”Daniel watched the fire.“The Americans are after him now.A priest from Angola -- Portuguese -- told me he saw some Yanks in the bush.”Daniel’s smile was cockeyed, forced.“War is, uh, it is a terrible thing.Terrible.But, but Kony is an evil man.He has murdered many people, from different tribes, different countries, of all faiths.The LRA burned my home.”

Irv: “Uh, with your, ah, family there?”

“Yes.Yes.”Somberly, succinctly: “And your family died by fire also?”

“A house fire, yes,” Irv said just loud enough for Daniel to hear.

Silence --

It was dusk, almost night.The door was open on the woodstove and the fire was popping lightly.It was the cedar kindling mixed with the hard wood that was making most of the noise and all of the fireworks.Two solar lights were on inside the bunkhouse, by the front door and in the kitchen.The wind picked up rushing the camp, but was turned aside, diverted though not stopped: it pushed through the autumn trees scattering, stealing leaves.

After the four beers it sounded like rushing water to Irv.Cool sweet water: lots of water.Water that put out the worst fires, and more water.

Daniel said, “I’m sorry, very sorry Irv -- I had two girls and a boy.Ula my wife -- I wasn’t there.It’s been two years but sometimes it seems like it was just, ah, hours ago -- minutes, seconds.”

“Sorry, Daniel,” Irv said, nodding.“I’m very sorry for your loss -- I had two boys, my wife. I wasn’t there, either.”Slower and in a softer voice: “I wasn’t there -- it’s been three, almost four years.”

One day at a time.

“It is the anger -- a rage -- that can choke you.You die from the inside out if you are not careful,” Daniel said.

“Yeah,” Irv agreed.“It’s like a tree rotting from the inside out.”Slowly and looking down at his feet: “On the outside it might look okay -- that tree -- but on the inside it’s dying, maybe even putrid.”In his cabin Irv had a picture of a burned out building, from World War II, in Dresden incinerated during the Allied bombing.Stark and alone in the midst of the rubble stood a single chimney, two, maybe three stories high.

“Anger can suffocate you,” Daniel said slowly. “It is another kind of fire.A terrible kind of fire.”

Irv had a flash-image of two brick columns standing in the carnage, and then saw Teddy’s face rising in the background as a full moon: a big fat Babe Ruth moon.

Teddy.

Daniel, in a low voice: “Most of the time I can’t think about it -- what happened.It is too, too, ah, terrible.”

“I can’t either.”

They both tipped beers to lips and drank.

“A wise woman told me that we must overcome our anger,” Daniel said, “leave it behind.Yes.We must learn to live with our grief because it will never leave us.”

“How are you doin with that Daniel?”

“Not so good -- not so good.How are you doing with it?”

“Not so good.”

Daniel smiled softly.“So maybe we are two pees in a pod?”

“Maybe we are Daniel,” Irv smiled back.

“Just as Teddy says.”

Irv: “Two pees in a pod -- just like Teddy says.”

A void, a vacuum opened up until it was filled by the crackling fire, the only sound in the room. Irv said, “One day at a time, brother.One day at a freakin time.”

“Yes,” Daniel answered.“One day at a time my brother.One day at a freakin time.”-end-

Caterina Zutscu and the Three Legged Dog

By Kevin O’Kendley

The seventy-five-year-old woman stepped gingerly out of a ‘98 Ford Taurus.She surveyed the line of winter trees as a picket line upslope.Dense woods surrounded the sweep of open ground at the Norma Johnson Conservation Center:Caterina smiled, she liked the way the tree cover crowded the snowy hilltops.

Cat buttoned the top button on her old gray overcoat.It was cold.

Under a well-worn ski cap her strong green eyes were lenses that captured and considered all things.A shifty breeze brushed gray bangs gently across her forehead.Cat turned downwind and in two steps she was upwind as the unreliable breeze began to stalk and circle and to nudge her ever so gently from one side and then another.

She trudged uphill on a well-marked path, hitching up baggy blue jeans.Without focus she looked back the way she had come: hers was the only car in the parking lot --

She was alone.

Cat’s boots were new, a gift from her son, Jimmy.He was a cameraman on Good Morning Cleveland so she watched the news program every morning.Jimmy, her youngest, was the most avid wanderer of her six children and four grandchildren. After graduating from Kent State he worked the world over returning to Ohio only a few years earlier.

She was proud of that boy even though she didn’t see much of him, or her other children and grandchildren either.They all lived so far away, always moving even farther away, a part of her family’s diaspora.Damn --

Caterina Zutscu -- she used her “maiden name” now -- didn’t want to explore this sad thing and so set it aside.She stopped, closed her eyes, felt, scented, merged with the land… finally Cat yielded at a nexus in time, smiled gently, winded her way up a ridge hugging the tree line.As she turned a tight corner her sightline was drawn downward to contemplate new hoof prints in the snow when a small mangy stray, a three-legged dog, popped into her plane of existence.

The collarless terrier mix stood still and watched her curiously. Cat stooped and offered a gloved palm.The scruffy mutt sniffed her hand politely but moved away as she tried to scratch its head.“Okay,” she smiled, “you’re not that kind of dog.”

Then, the strangest darn thing happened: the little mongrel turned to walk alongside her.The mutt never moved ahead or behind in its three-legged joggle but matched her pace even as she topped a hill winding in and out of ten-year-old pine trees, following a slow bend.Now and again the sweet creature turned its head to look up at her with an intelligence dancing in brown wild eyes --

Which were startling, and he -- yes it was a he (she looked) -- was smiling.Wow.No, it wasn’t poss -- yes, he resembled Tommy right down to the bushy mustache and the asthma.

Caterina’s first husband, Tommy, had been an expert and creative carpenter with what Cat described to friends as “a gift for minute detail” as opposed to her second husband who was an abstractor in pursuit and didn’t care about ingredients only the finished pie, which didn’t necessarily bring about this conundrum: Caterina sometimes missed her first husband most was when she was in bed with the second.She also missed Tommy when she needed to explain the ramifications of the malady of far-sightedness to someone who was not.Frank needed only the remedy, prescription glasses, and he was off and on his way to Canton.But, of course, she missed them both after they were gone.

Each husband had been kind and decent but like many good people they had their time, lived it uniquely, and died.Without exception, she had never seen either one of them again.Though over the years, she often felt that Tommy was just around the corner, or in the next room, or two cars back trying to catch up.

She sighed and smiled at the three-legged dog.

Tommy.

She’d been alone in the old house the last nine years except for her old friend, Bassoon. Bass for short.The Golden Retriever died the previous summer of bone cancer.The end was hard on them both.

Cat stopped suddenly: it was the oddest thing but the mutt really did look like Tommy.The shape of the head and the muzzle were Tommy’s.The brown eyes that glowed with bold inquisitiveness eager to see what was coming next were all Tommy.She chuckled: the mongrel met her eyes and for a heartbeat she thought he might say “want somethin?” just like Tommy used to when he was going to the kitchen, or the bedroom, to the store, always considerate:

“Want somethin Cat?C’mon, there’s gotta be sumpthin.”

“Do you want a Schlitz, Tommy?” she asked in a low and humorous voice.

The dog cocked his ears, met her curious gaze, and darn if he didn’t nod yes and pant hoarsely like Tommy used to --

And this stopped her.

Now her eyes locked with the mutt’s and pronouncing each word as succinctly as she once had to her pupils in her English class (on a good day), she said, “I’ll get you a beer after we finish our walk.”

And, darn if the frigging dog didn’t nod yes again.

She smiled wonderingly.

No, it couldn’t --

They came to a T-head in the trail and Cat followed the dog as he went one way and not the other, or the way she would normally go.Huh?What if?What if she had gone the other way alone?What would happen next in the direction she had chosen to follow with the mongrel?

She remembered a feeling, as a distant whisper it grew into a spoken thought: it was something that happened just after they buried Tommy.She’d felt a presence in her mind; the touch was feathery, light and soft.It had been Tommy.He said, “No one will love you like I do.”

She wept the whole way to the wake and then again on the way home.

The mutt cleared his throat; it was (almost?) human.She looked down at the three-legged terrier.He smiled up at her.No.No --

It couldn’t be.

She chuckled but he sure did look like Tommy.“Is that you Tommy?”

The stray nodded yes.

Her eyes glazed over with moisture --

Caterina stopped in the pathway amidst older hardwoods on one side and younger softwoods on the other.She wiped and rubbed her eyes and studied the mongrel.The pooch watched her, stock still, until its bent little tail started wagging.Given cause and effect, Cat chuckled with a lightness of spirit she had not felt for a long time.

The old woman scrunched down to scratch the dog’s head and this time he let her.Watching the mutt’s eyes, she said, “Tommy was like that.Didn’t like to be touched.Grew up in some tough foster homes, tough neighborhoods in Toledo and Youngstown.Took me years to teach him -- but then you know that right?”

The mutt nodded, panting like Tommy used to.

The two continued on their journey choosing one path over another; and one rise over the next.As they walked, Cat talked softly to the pooch about friends and students now gone, of the their children growing into middle age, of their grandchildren that she adored, about her cancer that she would not survive, about the gift of forest and water and open grassland that Norma Johnson left the people in Dover and New Philadelphia: where Cat found refuge in her walks and spiritual decompression, about small things and big things and important things and unimportant things, and Tommy listened.

It was like a gossamer haze, so she wasn’t sure if she imagined it or if Tommy really said: “You made a difference.You touched so many lives.”

She smiled softly, and they walked on…

As she chatted lightly, almost to the parking lot, the couple passed the small pond nearing journey’s end.Cat focused on a distant wooded sightline for a heartbeat and then down --

And, the dog was gone --

Frantically, she looked every direction with spiraling confusion, pirouetting; then slowing with a hard certainty she stared into a corner that wasn't there and frowned:

Tommy was gone.

An unbearable sadness-of-being stole the spring from her step.She looked up at a cold blue sky thinking nothing when she heard Tommy’s voice: “No one will love you like I do.”

Cat searched an unfocused spot on the ground and began crying.She said, “Yes, you were the one Tommy.You were the one” --

Huh?What? she thought.Suddenly, she was terrified --

Oh my god! It was odd, so strange but there were no paw prints, no prints of any kind on the foot path. How could that be?Crouched, she took a couple of tentative steps studying the crisp snow.The white plane was undisturbed.There were no boot prints.How could --

She understood something before she could frame the words.During her long walk around the park, even as she hiked uphill, she had not been demonstrably winded, or seemed tired.

She ran towards the parking lot:

Quickly, in tireless strides she was by the green Ford and saw what she feared to see: an old woman slumped over the steering wheel.

Was it really her body in the car?

The walk had been what, imagination?The three-legged dog?What about the dog?Had she truly left no boot prints?Though her lungs felt as they were constricting, filled with dread, she did not labor to breathe and she slowly turned to look back the way she had come.The trail was empty of any sign of her passing --

She felt a bleak rush of loneliness and utter fear, until she heard this:“You were a teacher, a mother, a wife, a friend.You were a good, decent and kind person, Cat.You touched the hearts of people: students, children, neighbors.You made the lives of everyone that knew you better, happier.”

Without knowing it Cat sighed with the warmth of peace framed by what?Relief?Yes, it was relief.She heard what she needed to hear; was so desperate to hear.

Then:“No one will love you like I do.”

And, she needed to hear that too --

She lost focus for a moment; then looked back at the trailhead, and Tommy smiled. He stood on the pathway just beyond the parking lot. He was wearing those raggedy old shorts, flip flops, the Hawaiian shirt with the skyline of Cleveland on board: he was dressed for summer. He looked as he did when they were first married --

Wherever folks gather to talk of the great deeds of Heroic men (iron men in wooden shits, er, ships) don’t be too surprised if the Homeric Porta-potty peeper I. Seymour Butts of P.O.O.P. is flung right out there with that freakish flasher in the raincoat that your mother warned you about…

The Porta-potty Peeperby Kevin O’Kendley

You’ve probably heard of Seymour, especially if you watched the news at KVTN Reno or KCRA Sacramento last summer.Nattily attired in his wetsuit, he got busted peeping while wallowing down within the Stygian darkness amidst the foul breath of ancient gods -- well, uh -- while he was underneath the toilet seat of a porta-potty at a rest stop a few miles north of Truckee, out on Highway 89.

Remember?

Yeah that was Seymour: he was that freaking super Homeric hero guy wearing crap camo inside of the ladies’ porta-potty.But, there’s more to the story than just fantastical headlines and Herculean deeds…

After they hosed him off, Seymour told the deputies that he had entered the potty by honest mistake.At first he claimed that he couldn’t read and so was unable to figure out which “hopper was for men” but one of the investigating deputies insisted that the porta-potties had unmistakable pictures of the proper gender-of-use on each of the doors printed in the unmistakable form of male and female walnut farmers (the porta-potties were originally from the upper Sacramento Valley and so the sole property of nut farmers).

Seymour quickly claimed he was color-blind and couldn’t actually see the human figures stenciled on the potty doors.That didn’t work either: a deputy rolled her eyes, and said, “I’m from Emeryville,” which was the exclamation point at the end of stark disbelief (ask anyone from Berkeley) obliterating/decimating Seymour’s claim.

Then affecting the accent of a Moon Man with a sinus cold (Marlene Deitrich-irascible) Seymour tried this: “No comprende the Eeng-leesh,” but it was too late as he had already offered all of his excuses in the English language, besides none of the deputies spoke Spanish.

Finally poor Seymour blurted out that he’d lost his keys -- dropped them -- in the hopper and had to “climb down inside of the, uh, muck” to find them (oh yeah, Seymour’s quite a contortionist if you didn’t know from his Dancing With The Stars and the Today Show antics).“So,” he told the unsympathetic deputies using his expressive goggle eyes in an attempt to trick the authorities into thinking he was simpatico, “I’m in there looking for my keys when a lady bowler barges in to use the potty: heck, I was too embarrassed to sing out.I mean what was I supposed to say to a lady bowler while she’s sittin on the hopper -- what if she had a bowling ball with her? Knock, knock: hey, I lost my keys.I don’t think so.I’m way too polite for that.”

At this point, Seymour underwent a metamorphosis becoming a beatific Yoda-like Debby Reynolds figurine: “By the way the lady bowler had a tattoo of Rosie the Riveter on her bum.Nice work, too.The contrasting inking was quite, ah, riveting.”

On the scene, a seasoned free-lance reporter winced at the pun but translated it into Farci, whispering it into his cell phone for an underground audience of nuclear scientists in Tehran, then into Finnish for some housewife/wrestlers in Halsua, and then into Armenian for a Fresno group of non-dairy derivative revolutionaries.

Even so: everything would have turned out just fine except the “freakin lady bowler abruptly stood up without adequate warning,” turned, and spotted Seymour just as she tossed a cigarette butt into the hopper, which -- Seymour dramatically pointed out to the judge -- “took place in a combustible no smoking zone, yer onner.”

Of course, as a deeply honorable man Seymour was taken aback that no one believed the dropped keys nonsense but as a good citizen he was truly hurt that no one seemed to care that the lady had been smoking in a “no smoking environment.” That was too much --

Seymour was sphincter-stricken: didn’t anyone have any respect for the law anymore?

First, get with it: you have to understand that the Twenty First Century is not the dark ages (the Sixties), or even the 80s when men and women dressed so much alike no one knew who was who -- and peeping is perfectly fine now, certainly moral, even a totalitarian Gulag-inspired art form, in addition to its obvious capitalistic free-market applications.

Peeping is always morally permissible if you’re rich, or powerful, or respectable, or a prominent deviant, or even a little less than respectable as long as if you’re part of an unethical extremist organization or club that has any clout, or are working for somebody that is rich or powerful or for some sort of appointed supervisor in said organization or club, or if you’re just an absolute CREEPY WANKER.But, don’t try it if you’re a migrant worker from El Salvador picking apples in Washington because you’ll get deported.Don’t try it if you’re a hard working guy lumping fish on the docks in Portland, Maine, because you’ll go to jail.Don’t even think about it if you’re a single mother in Denver because you’ll lose the kids in a heartbeat.And, don’t you dare try it if you’re an honest Cheyenne cop because you’ll get transferred to border-tower duty on the Nebraska stateline to keep Corn Huskers out of the Cowboy State.

You have to be very special and privileged to get away with the stuff Seymour gets away with.

Yes that’s right: you have to have special rights and privileges and most of you don’t.

Ha-ha.

Seymour is forty-eight years old but he can remember his first undercover job like it was yesterday:

His auntie had come to visit and so babysit.It was summertime and she thought Seymour was in the backyard playing something Rockwellian like reinforcing the corporate gender glass ceiling by whacking some dolls with a hurling stick or something more Doctor Demento-abstract like hosting a talk show on C-Span discussing reproductive reasoning while wearing full-size body condoms made of mosquito netting -- but he was actually hiding in the dirty clothes hamper inside his parents’ bathroom while his auntie used the potty.

Then, she took a shower.As she lathered herself up (Seymour thought that soap thing was great) she sang, “Hmmmph What’s Love Got to Do With It,” by Tina Turner, and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” by Cyndi Lauper, and the “Oscar Meyer Weiner Song” (you remember: “I want to be an Oscar Meyer Weiner and then everyone will be in love with me”) by The U.S. Supreme Court-Congressional Hill Choir.

Man oh man! Even after all the interminable and intervening years Seymour still can’t listen to that song without seeing his auntie’s horror stricken countenance flash before his eyes, and claims that he suffers somewhat from Delayed Stressful Peeping Syndrome due to the horrific memory, although he doesn’t usually throw that out there just to try to make a woman feel sorry for him, although it did work for him once or just long enough to get married in Sparks (and then divorced in Reno).

But listen to this:A few years back as Seymour was driving across Nevada on I-80 to peep in a retirement home in Winnemucca, he got passed by the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.He was doing at least ninety, maybe ninety-five but that hot dog whipped by him like a Chicago Bratwurst shot out of a circus cannon: man, could that thing fly.Heck, Seymour nearly suffered a complete nervous breakdown -- twitches, ticks, shudders -- and within minutes he had to pull over in the middle of some frigging salt flat on the dark side of the moon and cry his eyes out.It was horrible --

Just horrible.

Think if it happened to you?

But, Seymour dealt with it keeping faith with a rigorous spiritual menschness tempered by his innately pure emotional battery acid: he kicked his girlfriend’s dog, twice, or until the Pomeranian ran off (the big baby) with, oddly, his two tails between its legs.

Seymour can remember the first time he actually got busted for peeping, too.He was four years old:

After taking her shower Seymour’s auntie lifted up the wooden lid on the dirty clothes hamper to deposit her unmentionables; then she screamed, and screamed, because, Seymour later theorized, she found a little boy where there should have been none, and, maybe, because she was naked, and, maybe, too, because Seymour was wearing an ice hockey goalie mask and making odd barking noises.

Unfortunately, Seymour was securely in the hamper and so of course his auntie had to call the fire department to get him out.

Ha, you’re probably saying to yourself right now: “So, I bet Seymour became a fireman because all firemen do is put out fires and save people, and it was firemen that saved I. Seymour Butts.”Nope.You couldn’t be more wrong.Seymour eventually went to work for a secret security firm of CREEPY WANKERS that serve anyone willing to pay them the big bucks to spy and/or to stalk the American public for a variety of illegal and immoral and un-Constitutional reasons.

Peeping On Other People, or POOP, recruited Seymour after he got picked up for peeping in the bushes outside of a private residence in Grass Valley, California (near world renown Nevada City and the good ol Mineshaft Saloon).The police tried to convince a skeptical judge that Seymour was some sort of pervert but in fact he was “studying” the woman because he was a deeply committed social scientist and working on his thesis for his Associate of Arts Degree in Moral Thinking at the now defunct Whazza Matta University or Whazza Matta U. in Citrus Heights, California.

See, the woman, Tonya Bunion, had twelve toes.I. Seymour Butts wanted to know the truth about -- not just guess at it -- how this lamentable toe thing interacted with her quality of life.While Tonya bragged to others (Seymour was listening to her cell phone calls with some easily acquired software from Burma) that twelve toes made her a better swimmer than all of her friends, unless they “cheated and wore fins,” except “that Sandy who grew up on the beach in Santa Cruz, the bitch.” It was Seymour’s thesis contention that having to spend more “quality time” trimming her toenails than ten-toed normal people like the rest of us actually diminished the real “quality” of Tonya’s life, and the swimming thing was almost totally irrelevant, especially if she went to the beach with Sandy.

Mr. Beelzebub was so crooked he had to turn himself counter clockwise several times just to get up from the toilet.Seymour knew this because he spied on his boss disguised as a towel rack.But, Seymour provided (and still does) this country with a service we need: Peeping On Other People.

To POOP on us all.

In other words Mr. Beelzebub and his POOPers are ready and able to peep at any given moment, even as Mr. Beelzebub convinces you that he’s the greatest patriot around, and even as you watch your life spiral down the hopper, swirling and swirling and swirling all the way to Hades...

Heck, without guys like I. Seymour Butts and Mr. Beelzebub this country might possibly end up with some sort of Constitutional democracy, and we can’t take a chance on something like that happening.Can you imagine what might occur if some people didn’t know their place?What if a dishwasher (spatial dish engineer) believed himself equal to a Wall Street Banker at Lehman Brothers (welfare recipient)?Hey, what if everyone thought that they were equal with everyone else or that their children regardless of income, sex, race, creed, or color deserved the same civil rights as everyone else’s children?Egads, man, think of the utter confusion a sense of equality could cause and not just with those at POOP (with special privileges), but with everyone.Such a self-empowering belief of equal rights might spread like wildfire: hell, even gay people might jump on the band wagon --

Equality, civil rights, human dignity -- Yowsa -- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… Seymour shuddered to think of the myriad of revolting possibilities should the forces of good win out over the forces of self-appointed privilege and special interest rule.

What if the absolute guarantees of inalienable human rights as intended by America’s founders were absolutely and irrefutably real?

Good lord --

What if everyone actually acted as if -- everyone -- really did believe in the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law?

Huh?

What the hell:

The next time you stop to use a porta-potty -- anywhere -- lift up the lid and take a good look, and for heaven’s sake don’t be surprised if you see Seymour and/or Mr. Beelzebub, and/or other POOPers creeping and peeping and usurping your inalienable rights down below in a nether world of filth and muck -- after all that’s where they do their best work. -end-​

Author's note: "I. Seymour Butts" is a name taken from a joke in the public domain. And: "Whazza Matta U." is a fictional college from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

On every crowded bus, around every corner, and in every forgotten nook and cranny, there is someone a little different by image, in mind, in body, someone who just might be...

The Only Freaking Normal Guy in Town By Kevin O’Kendley

Andy has this knob right in the middle of his forehead, not like a bump but like a knob. If Andy’s forehead were a drawer you could pull it out and inspect everything inside. Not that you ever would. It’s bad enough when Andy offers up the charcoal-filtered drags of his three-gin secrets and gunpowder theories -- Which is when you are positive that you never really want to get a better look at Andy’s smoldering brain if there is any way to avoid it. Remember when Andy used to tease his sister by wearing those spiral X-ray glasses from Marvel Comics claiming he could see right through clothing and bathroom doors? It wasn’t just his family that was traumatized but whole neighborhoods, towns, cities. As this peeping plague went viral, many people, having felt that they had lost their privacy, stopped having sex, so no babies were born. Schools went out of business, so did Toys R Us. Planned Parenthood debates died down for a while. Gerber’s Baby Food switched to making light beer and reduced calorie salsa for the over-fifty crowd just to survive the shocking bambino drought. Of course once the scientific properties of x-ray glasses were exposed -- there were none -- life returned to “normal.” You shouldn’t have asked him but you once did: “How come the Walt Disney people never sued you?” You think it disturbing to watch Andy drink but it is always very interesting nonetheless and though you want to turn away it is like he has a mind magnet dragging you back, back, baaaccckkk… The ex-circus performer and former Governor of the Bermuda Triangle tipped his head back on his double-jointed neck and dumped half a cup of cold coffee down into his long reptilian gullet, grimaced, scaring the Bejesus out of you: “Well, there was a time,” Andy said musingly, “I kinda hoped they’d take me to court. Y’know a little publicity. Maybe something in the trade journals. But, God save us, all I got now is one fat lady with a beard, a chintzy roller coaster, and four flatulent chimpanzees -- fortunately I was never married to any of the chimps,” he smiled. When he was younger they called him the Anaconda Man. Of course, once he was older and heavier his detractors called him the Anaconda Man with a Pig in His Belly. You call him Andy, though he prefers Andy Conda, which is his legal name having had it changed it from Carol Franklin years earlier. Did that mean Andy was once a woman? Wow: You are as reticent to ponder such a thing as you are to grab that knob, pull open the drawer and take a look at Andy’s brain. Fortunately, you’re saved from any curiosity of at least one morbid thought by the fact that there were men “back in the day” who were actually named Carol (because of the Carol Burnett Show), though naming a boy Carol definitely became less popular after the Earth ended in 1999. Yes I know: You tried to warn anyone that would listen that it wasn’t the KY Jelly Computer Scare -- when world-wide computers were going to get lubed up by a sexual lubricant virus whereupon the finicky machines would be unable to gain traction-momentum and flip their little doohickeys from the last year of the 20th Century to the first year of the 21st Century -- wasn’t the real threat. Nor afterwards, when all motorized deliveries would cease, cell phones implode, yak sales skyrocket, and life would come to a halt: except for certain survivalist cults led by guys with names like Zigfried, Basil, and Horace. But rather it was the Knuckleheads, which believe such things, that folks really had to worry about. But of course, history proved the Knuckleheads right, the world did end at the very beginning of the Twenty-First Century even if no one really noticed: though, it was announced on C-Span every Thursday for a year, after Tower Books shut their doors with The End of the Earth Sale. Anyway: Andy Conda has a freak show carnival called Wult Disney World (named after a long dead two-headed dog) and Traveling Arboretum (he once had a potted palm tree and still has a little cactus and a fake fern in his trailer). Every summer the show comes to Mesopotamia City (the cradle of the retread tire civilization/empire directly servicing the Dominican Republic and Haiti) during the Assorted Nuts Festival. Every year the town council says they are never asking Andy back, but the simple truth is that Mesopotamia City is the kind of place where some less discerning drivers might, if they were out on the turnpike and their fuel gauge read empty, try for the next exit before stopping for gas, even if they had a flat tire, a dead body in the trunk, and there was a state trooper on their bumper. Heck, you figured the town of ten thousand unregistered voters is darn lucky to get Wult Disney World and Traveling Arboretum, even if the chimpanzees do stink. Though, of course, there was that awful rumor, once or twice, that the bearded lady had lice, and all the schools, tanning parlors, and coffee shops within a fifty-mile radius were evacuated. One time, in fact, a pet store was burned down by rioting Knuckleheads because it had a sign advertising the sale of Bearded Collies. The enflamed reactionaries thought that Bearded Collies were actually bearded women from Scotland, confusing bearded Colleens from Ireland with Bearded Collies from Scotland. By-the-way, Scotland is an ancient country which is actually situated across the Irish Sea from Ireland and is connected to England by a land bridge that the Romans built called Adrian’s Walk. Thankfully, no dogs were injured in the pet store fire however several of the reactionaries suffered burns in the Genitalia area, which is also not in Scotland. Anyway: You never heard anyone use the word “flatulent” in a sentence before Andy Conda. So, that was one of the reasons you talk with Andy every summer; of course, the fact that no one in town talks to you if they can cross the street in time is also an impetus. Every year Andy has coffee with you IN PUBLIC and after a polite interlude he always asks you the same question, though not always framed by the same words or in the same way: “Why don’t you blow this burg and come traveling with me. Y’know a guy with your attributes could go a long way in this business.” Your attributes? Well, you drink your coffee from a cup made from one of Greta Garbo’s shoes (you bought it on E-Bay from a “half-German, half-French, half-Indonesian, and half Nigerian” immigrant-entrepreneur by way of Big Rump, Alberta), a sensible red pump, something she wore after she retired from the screen “not before,” as some collectors sneer. You know that some folks don’t even believe that the shoe once belonged to Garbo, and some folks don’t care -- some don’t even know -- and some think it disgusting to watch you in your Nehru jacket, with surgically altered Mr. Spock ears, a Mohawk haircut, a wallaby bone through your nose, drinking coffee out of a woman’s shoe while wearing a brightly colored sash across your chest advertising the beer specials at Who Dat Who Say Who Dat Saloon, though, you don’t understand the “disgusted reaction” because you are, after all, a venture capitalist. And of course you always use a straw, you aren’t insane or unhygienic. So, one of your fortes is that you keep bendable straws in your shirt pocket in case your cousin, Mountebank, takes you (you don’t drive vehicles as the various synchronized functions are too complex and time consuming) to the Forgotten Vice Presidents’ Museum and Beer Garden right there in your own Mesopotamia City (the miniature badminton capital of Bratwurst County) where you can drink 3.2 beer and watch Mountebank’s children laugh riotously as they get lost within the Dan Quayle Potato(e) Maze; explore the Hubert Humphrey -- My Name Really Is Hubert -- Funhouse; shoot at dolls in the Dick Chaney Face Hunting Shootout; and, finally, race down the Walter Mondale Blow My Miiinnnd Slide. They call you a freak in Mesopotamia City, though Andy just calls you Lucky -- Because you make some people in town really, really, REALLY nervous. Sometimes They even wince when They see you, or turn their heads away; or chuckle like starving badgers and look right through you. But Andy tells you -- he insists with great vigor every year -- you are the embodiment of the town’s humanitarian progress, the sum total of all jiggling biomass art, and the zenith of the retread civilization’s retooling chutzpah after the world ended in 1999. At this point Andy usually pounds a closed fist into an open hand, and practically screams: “This is what truly bothers the citizens of Mesopotamia City, not the pointy ears, nor the sash, or Greta Garbo’s sensible pump, or even that time you fought your big and valiant heart out trying to repeal that fascist noise ordinance against flip flops -- flip-flop flip-flop flip-flop -- but your achievements, brother. It’s your achievements!” Of course people stare at the two of yous as you sup within the practical ambience of the Hammerhead Tea Room and Welding Center while Andy Conda expounds noisily in blithering triumph, which is to be expected when making an excruciating dramatic point, but man is he loud, he is really loud. Oh yes, he is quite an orator, too, and you are such a good and polite listener -- And, the two of yous are quite a picture, brother -- So, why do you stick around Mesopotamia City with a bunch of jealous pump haters and anti-flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop fascist noise controllers even after the Earth has ended? Why don’t you scram and go with Andy Conda? Why? What? You say you aren’t quite sure why? Huh? Well… hmmmm… Really? Maybe you stay in Mesopotamia City because of life’s simple pleasures: after all you have Rasputin’s Pool Hall, The Potted Bar and Grille, the Forgotten Vice President’s Museum, Park, and Beer Hall, and your job as a shoe salesman in The Great Waldo Pepper Shoe Emporium (naturally, you work in the women’s department -- you certainly enjoy a well-shaped female foot). Huh? Well, whatever the reason, what’s important is that every August, after an agonizingly long year of being the butt of jokes and making babies cry, when Andy Conda comes to town with his world famous carnival and arboretum, hell, you are, once again, a man of attributes and not a freak at all: Because this is what Andy tells you with such firm belief and great passion: “You are the only freaking normal guy in this town fella” -- “The only freaking normal guy in town!” -end-

This story is for all those folks everywhere who feel like they just don’t fit in or aren't wanted…

Hoity Toity/Chapter Two of Otis Moon, a novel by Kevin O’Kendley (available on Amazon).

She wanted to look like Carole Lombard but she was hampered by a striking resemblance to Babe Didrickson.She drank her coffee with her pinky stuck out like she was a Russian Hill railroad heiress.Her badly worn but once expensive shoes told me she no longer had an extra five bucks to buy a new pair.She said “isn’t” when “ain’t” would have worked just as good.

Hilda Bobley was hoity-toity without any real toit in the toity.Of course, I’ve been known to make snap judgments that have proved to be as savvy as a U-turn on a one-way street full of steam rollers.

My Packard was still convalescing over at Blinky Hufnagel’s Garage.So, I climbed aboard a J trolley for a few blocks.We rendezvoused at a murky café of her choice on Church and 17th near the Mission Delores.

We hung our coats over the backs of the chairs and laid our hats on the table.Hers was a wide brimmed affair with birds or lizards or something creepy on it.I took my flowered tie off -- I was over-dressed -- and put it in my coat pocket.I fingered my gat in my shoulder holster (after Spain I never went anywhere without it, not even to the bathtub) and patted down my worn tweed jacket to make sure the bulge was minimal.

We made some small talk about the weather, which she said was lousy though better today, and about the New Deal, which she said was good everyday, though I had my doubts.She gave me the once over, watched me closely, checked my eyes, studied my face.She was sizing me up and made no pains to fake it.

“You’re the first private eye I’ve ever met,” Hilda said.

I shrugged and smiled sourly, though I tried to build a better smile, kind of, well maybe not -- who the heck cares.

“What kind of name is Moon?” she asked.

Oh boy.“Whattya mean what kind of name is Moon?”She lost me.

Her ruby red lipstick had been applied outside of the lines.It was a mess.The paint job gave her a quizzical look with a sharp upward dogleg in the right-hand corner of her mouth.I wanted to say something about it, warn her, but with my lack of social grace if I told a dame she was beautiful she’d slug me, so I decided against saying anything about the lipstick.Unfortunately, the paint job was as easy to ignore as a bumblebee buzzing around your head while you were driving.

She pursed the lips within the lips, and said, “Well, what kind of name is it?Was your family named after the moon?If you were Spanish, you’d be Luna -- we’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time in Mexico.Do you see?So, your family must be English.I mean, if you were named after the moon.”

Wow.“Ah, I’m just an American mutt,” I said, and looked into my coffee cup. Then, I grunted, my nature got the worst of me, and I added with some perpetual motion steam: “My first name’s Otis.I, uh, was named after King Otis of Lafaria.He had eighteen wives but that’s not what killed him.He was killed when an old duck fell outta the sky and hit him on the head.”I looked cute at her.

“Real-ly,” she said, with a little sour note in the last syllable.

I thought for a moment, smiled, and finished with:“That’s why in Lafaria when somethin’s goin for your head, like a rock, a bee, y’know an object of some kind, people say, ‘Duck!’That’s how that whole thing got started.We say duck in America now.”She didn’t seem impressed with the story, so I added, “But it all got started in Lafaria.”

Maybe she didn’t have a humorous bone under all that makeup.Or, maybe I’m as weird as my ex-wives claim.Her heavily eye-lined eyelids narrowed into cracks like black state boundaries on a cheap roadmap.I thought I’d lost her but she said, “I think I’ve heard of Lafaria.It’s next to Latvia.”She smiled shyly.

I chuckled.Hey, there was somebody hiding in there.She had a good smile, a genuine one.And, that made me smile.I already knew there was somebody hiding in me, although I was never quite sure who.

In a ratty monkey suit, a tall waiter with a pencil-thin mustache watched us glumly with the kind of obvious distaste snobs feel for working stiffs.He slouched by a framed picture of what looked like Aunt Jemima, though it could have been some famous Roman with a funny hat on.It was hard to tell.We hadn’t ordered enough off the menu to make the weasel happy, which I might have done, except when he first brought over my coffee I noticed he had enough Brilliantine in his hair to change the oil of a tugboat.

He had my coffee on a greasy tray directly under his slicked back head, tempting gravity.I didn’t go for that.No telling what was in the cup.I had to check and re-check the brew for oil slicks.I immediately made things worse by ordering chili, which I then couldn’t eat, because there was no telling whether it was contaminated by the Brilliantine.

I said, “So, you were kinda like Gertrude’s private maid, huh?”

“I was more than that, Mr. Moon.But, I’m still her friend.”

“Is it the friend or the ex-confidential maid who won’t tell me where Gertrude is?” I smiled, I think, or I tried to anyway.

Hilda Bobley smiled back (so I guess maybe I did smile).“I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you where Mrs. Hodkins is, Mr. Moon.I think I said on the telephone that I didn’t know if I should or not.”She started to say something else but stopped with her mouth half open and her lips going wild.

I looked at her rough red hands resting lady-like on the edge of the checkered tablecloth.Her nails were chipped.She was doing other people’s laundry or cleaning, or so I figured, you know being a detective and all.This cancelled out the hoity-toity judgment.Maybe, she just wanted to be something she thought she should be, a lady.I could understand that sort of ambition.I once wanted to be a human being.I figured she had already come a lot closer to attaining her goal than I had.

The café’s front door opened for a moment letting in a fleeting January draft.That’s when I definitely smelled it.It was the perfume from hell.Maybe, I wouldn’t be able to like Hilda, after all.

Down in the Mission, I used to live in a boarding house, which was no more than a flophouse with rotten meals thrown in.An old dame with a knife scar across her forehead and a heavy five o’clock shadow ran the place.We called her Blackbeard the Pirate, or at least, I called her that.

Every time some drunk would use the hopper, old Blackbeard would come in and spray this perfume all around the bathroom in the hopes of arresting the primary, offending odor.But, all Blackbeard ever accomplished with her horrible action was to create a cloying stink that I’ve never been able to shake.

Not even in the killing fields of Spain.

I found out later that it wasn’t a cheap perfume, either.See, my second wife, the one I was only married to for four months, used that perfume.Every time she doused herself up and came to bed, I thought of Blackbeard’s crapper.I got a fast divorce, and actually congratulated myself for making it as long as I had.

It was the same perfume Hilda wore.

There was no way I was going to eat the chili what with the perfume, and the lips, and the Brilliantine flying around the room.So, I stayed with the coffee.It was hot, old, mean, and thoroughly inspected.

Hilda wore expensive clothes, clean, mended, but old, used, fraying, dark.Maybe, the clothes had once belonged to Gertrude Hodkins?They had the feel of hand-me-downs: they didn’t fit right here and there.Hilda sipped her coffee with obvious enjoyment; she had already ravaged her club sandwich with equal relish.She was hungry.

I calculated that I might get out of my lunch date for less than four bits, not counting a nickel tip.I was also the Moon Investigations accountant and it was my job to run a tight, fiscal ship.

Hodkins had fired Hilda eight months earlier.Her name was on my list of only three personal contacts for Gertrude Hodkins.She was my first face-to-face because she was the only one who answered the telephone.

I was a scientific detective.

I looked around the dump.It was a black and white Depression sideshow big enough for, maybe, eight or nine head of cattle.It was lunchtime and full.Before 1929 only undertakers or Irish cops would have gone there for a good time.The specials were written in an indecipherable hand on a cracked chalkboard.There was a lot of soup.The waiter was going to be an actor, or, excuse me, was an actor.I’d bet my chili the bartender with no eyebrows just got out of jail.But, Hilda didn’t have a car, or bus fare, and she lived just around the corner.So, there we were prisoners of convenience.Or fate.

I thought how much I was getting tired of dumps and bad coffee.I could use a good Redding steak, a clean knife and fork, and a pint of Anchor Steam, not to mention a good cup of Joe.In fact, as soon as I paid my bar tab I was going to spend a day at Toal’s Stable, and get the works.

But, I had a job to finish first.

“So, Hilda,” I asked, “Where is she?”

Hilda looked up from the brim of her coffee cup.Her face was tired underneath all the paint.She pursed the lips within the lips, again, and said, “It’s just a game she’s playing.I’m not protecting her.”She smiled strangely, even compared to the lips.“I mean, it’s not important where she is -- it’s not a secret or anything.”

I nodded and gave her time.I didn’t want to push until I knew if all the signs read, push or pull.

She finished her coffee.I signaled to the actor in the corner for a refill.This enraged him.He brought the dingy pot over in an operatic huff.I ignored him.He sloppily poured out the murky, black liquid.I still ignored him.Maybe, I’d ignore the nickel tip too.I mean if the mug was going to be a big movie star, he didn’t need any dough from me.

“Mr. Hodkins could care less where Mrs. Hodkins is most of the time,” Hilda said.“That’s what it’s all about.He doesn’t care.She ran away so he’d have to find her.She’s done it before.She just wants to know he cares, I guess.It’s just a game.”

“Just a highbrow game?” I asked without much curiosity.“I’ve been told that Mrs. Hodkins has some mental quirks?Is she bughouse?”

“Well, no not bughouse crazy.”She smiled, seemingly amused at my use of the English language.“She’s high strung.”Hilda began to build on that but stopped, and closed her mouth tightly.

“What is it Hilda?Go ahead.”

She said slowly, almost reciting a litany, “I have an invalid mother.I take care of her.I’m out of work.I’ve always been loyal to Mr. Hodkins but he fired me because I’m Mrs. Hodkins’ friend.It was wrong.”She sipped her coffee; then wearily scratched her wide forehead.“I know where Mrs. Hodkins is.Can you give me, ah, some money -- a reward?”

So, it wasn’t about loyalty.It was about dough.I didn’t like Hilda’s perfume, and she wanted dough for information, but it didn’t mean Hilda was a bad sort.It just meant times were tough.Good intentions had a 50% unemployment rate in 1939.

“We could work somethin out,” I said.“If you tell me where she is and I find her.Y’know make sure she’s where you say she is.I could throw some dough your way.”

She nodded with a faint, disconcerting smile.She changed the subject, and said, “I don’t get to talk to many people, any more, let alone strange men.”

I cocked an eyebrow, although it felt like both of them shot up, or maybe my nose just dropped and the eyebrows stayed where they were.

She may have blushed beneath the pancake make-up, but it was hard to tell.“I mean, someone, someone, I, I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.I just figured you’re a good judge of character.”

She chuckled demurely and looked down at her hands.Then, she grew serious and her features underwent a metamorphosis into a suitable, dramatic movie-look.Fortunately, I was safe from that kind of modern excess -- I only listened to the radio.

“I’m Mrs. Hodkins friend.I wouldn’t tell you where she is if she didn’t really want me to.I know she wants Mr. Hodkins to find her, but she doesn’t want him to know that.”

I sighed.“Did she tell you to let me know?”

“No.Not exactly.It’s just a game.”

I nodded, and watched her eyes and face.She looked away.“How much do you want?” I asked.

She ran her stubby fingers through her dyed-blond hair.It was good hair, thick and bouncy.It probably looked better in its natural color, which judging by the roots, was dark brown.

“Is fifty dollars too much?” she asked, and quickly added, “I’m starting a new job next week.I only need enough to catch up.”

“Fifty bucks is, is fine.Uh, if Hodkins won’t pay it, I will.”

Hilda looked at her nails, frowned, sighed, looked at me, and said, “I don’t like that waiter.He’s not a nice man.You seem like a nice man, Mr. Moon.”

I had nothing to say to that, the dame didn’t know me from Adam.

Tugging at her unadorned earlobe, Hilda said, “Can I have it in cash, today?”She looked at me appraisingly.

“Well,” I said slowly, “I can give you a check.”She suddenly looked defeated, or deflated like a beach ball.“I could give you a sawbuck and a check for the rest.”

“A sawbuck?”

“Ten bucks.”

“Okay, yes, that would be great.”

Her tongue darted out like a small pink mouse and she licked her crooked lips.Hilda looked directly into my eyes, and said, “Mrs. Hodkins is staying at the El Rancho Hotel in West Sacramento.Room 72.”

“Okay,” I said.

The woman that raised me, Ida Steppanowicz, my Polish grandmother, taught me that it was rude to light up until dessert, or until after-dinner coffee.There was nothing left on Hilda’s plate.So, she was done.I wasn’t going to buy her dessert, not after the sawbuck.But, I offered her a Lucky.She squinted, not her brand, but she accepted anyway.

I conjured up a kitchen match, struck its head on the bottom of the table and lit both our smokes.

The café had abalone ashtrays.There was something uncivilized about flipping my ashes into the shell of a dead fish.Give me a real ashtray any time, something made out of clay or concrete, or something with iron in it.So, I flicked the ashes into the chili.Maybe the actor-waiter could resell it to the next couple of suckers to fill our seats?

I sucked in a deep lungful of smoke.Hilda watched me curiously with an odd look on her face.What the heck?I’d just gotten a lucky break.Could finding Mrs. Hodkins be that easy?Sure, sometimes the whole job was just that, simple and easy.Then again, sometimes it never worked out.I thought of the two hundred buck bonus I was going to get for a quick job well done.Heck, I could spare fifty of it for Hilda.Why not?

Hilda sighed, and then continued to justify or explain things to me.“My phone was disconnected half-an-hour after you called me, Mr. Moon.My mother needs medicine.It’s just a game for Mrs. Hodkins.I’m not a Judas, Mr. Moon.”

“No, I don’t think you are, Hilda.”My back itched.My neck was getting hot.The whole interview was beginning to get stifling.People did what they did.Hilda was just another soft case in a hard world.She didn’t need to convince me.We didn’t need to talk about it.All we needed to do was to pay taxes and die.

For a few minutes we avoided each other’s peepers and drank our coffee in silence.

I passed the ten bucks across the table to Hilda.She sniffled into a handkerchief.

The waiter was leering at us now.

After rent, bills, lunch, and the sawbuck I paid Hilda I had about thirty bucks left from Hodkins’ advance.I had sixty-two forty-seven in the bank.I had some dough coming in on the Ade job, but it wouldn’t buy me a small country in Central America.I didn’t want to end up like Hilda Bobley.Times were tough; I needed my telephone and all three office chairs.I’d find Mrs. Hodkins and pick up some easy dough.Then, I’d move on to whatever came next.And, try to keep from sticking a pistol in my eye on lonely nights when I had too much time to think, and drink.

I swirled my coffee around the cup: I was waiting for us to finish our smokes and for lunch to be over.“Hey, where’s Hodkins from?D’ya know?”I asked.

“Back East somewhere, I think,” Hilda said.

“New Jersey?”

“Maybe,” she said.She frowned in thought.“New York, maybe.”

Bull.More like Transylvania, I thought.“Does he have a speech impediment,” I asked.“Like a forked tongue or somethin?”

“No,” she shook her head with a straight face.“He’s mean but honest.”

Something tugged at my mental britches like a drunk lying in a doorway.I asked, “Did Hodkins telephone you about his wife?”

“No.”

I said almost to myself, “He could have saved a lot of dough if he’d just phoned you.Why didn’t he?”

“That kind, huh?” I said.What the heck, it was my good luck that he was lazy and a snob.I needed the dough. Still --

“Anyway,” Hilda said quickly, “I would never have told him where she was.”

Except, she just had through me.

When we left the cafe, I decided to stiff the waiter, and I felt real good about it too.I wanted to erase his pencil-thin mustache, but I’m an adult and there are laws that can put me in the can for doing things like that, even if most of those laws are negotiable if you’ve got enough dough to oil the machine.So, I acted like I was going to leave a four bit tip and palmed the half dollar with a gleeful smirk: my grandmother would have been horrified.

I didn’t close the café door behind me either.

I heard the waiter yell, “Whattaya born in a barn?”

Yeah, actually, I’m told I was.It was a cow barn on the side of Highway 99, just outside Stockton: Yessirreebob, I was an accident born in a barn.

Orville was an odd-looking figure to come across in the middle of a war or probably anywhere else for that matter:

The dude had a half-moon unibrow of snow-white porcupine quills overhanging a bloodshot wasteland of eyeballs, his Gene Autry saddlebags hung really heavy underneath all that dark and sagging artwork.The long gray hair was tied in a ponytail with a Friar Tuck bald spot on top of, maybe, a size eight head.Orville’s long-skinny body seemed too frail to support his leonine crown.

And, Leo?What kind of still-frame image did he leave on the pocked-marked walls of Lebanese memories?

Well, he was like you, whoever you are.

No, really he was like you as long as you didn’t try to dress him in plaid or tartan because he was a single, solid color man.If you put him in uniform you would have had to make him an admiral or a senior chief to make him almost happy.And, while you were at it you could have put a couple of grand in his pocket, he hated being broke.

So, see he was like you.

Orville had surly tufts of white hair on his shoulders and upper back to make up for the lack of written information on his gray tank top.His sandals were ordinary and unremarkable but stood out in their vibrant orangeness against black socks.The faded aquamarine and yellow and red Bermuda shorts might have been new when Kennedy and Nixon were debating on TV in black and white.

The old guy was drinking scotch on the rocks from two snifters: good scotch, Pinch, giant globules (that Middle East Riviera thing).In front of him on the bar top was a short length of rope knotted tightly at both ends with a loosened slip knot in the middle.Leo thought it a “Poacher’s” knot -- looked like it anyway -- a convenient weave for an easy snare-like restraint or an even better self-tightening hangman’s noose --

Uh-oh.Who was the necktie for?Hopefully not for Leo, thought Leo thinking of Leo’s welfare and Leo’s future and Leo’s neck in general.Leo didn’t like nooses in general and stayed away from neckties too; in fact he wouldn’t wear a tie to a funeral unless his grandmother made him.

Orville expertly untied the knot and dropped the Nylon rope over the side, behind the bar.

Two drinks for Orville?Was there a second drinker sneaking around somewhere?Probably.

Hell, it had been a rough night of sneaking around and Leo sure could use a free drink on the house but he wasn’t going to ask.Like you it wasn’t his way.

About ten minutes into their, up to that point, nonsensical dialogue of introductions and snake oil sales pitches, Orville, possibly commenting on his unique appearance, or trying to disarm Leo with an unexpected and absurd question, asked the Yank this: “Do you think back hair will ever be sexy?”

This caught Leo by surprise.But, the Yank answered quickly: “Sure,” he grunted playing the game, “if you’re an otter.Girl seals like back hair on their, uh, men too.What’s a male seal called?”

Orville chuckled, showing amazingly white teeth. but his eyes were flat and emotionless.“A seal,” he said.

Leo smiled back: it was a reluctant grin, eked-out in watching a hated former Burbank mayor make it across the Hollywood Freeway on foot without getting hit by a bus.See, despite Orville’s good-natured banter his old barracuda eyes smelled of rancid fish scales:

Of course, the setting was convoluted and that short piece of hangman’s rope slightly clouded Leo’s judgment as to whether Providence’s glass was half full or half empty or he was about to get hit upside the head with it, again.

Orville looked Leo over quietly, curiously, professionally.

Leo smiled or tried to, and said, “I remember some poor lady at some freak show carnival when I was a kid. I think she was called the Wolf Woman.She mighta accepted back hair onna man but she probly didn’t really want to.”

“Ah, The Wretched of the Earth.”

“Franz Fanon.”

Orville grinned at Leo kind of like he was a fake teacher and the Yank had come up with the answer to a tough question by sheer dumb luck.Then: “Help yourself.”He pointed his nose at the Pinch.“To the good old days -- cheers,” the old guy said with a wee bit of something British in the toast.

Hmmm?

Leo hadn’t been there for Orville’s good old days, and even though Leo was nearly thirty he didn’t feel like he’d had any of his own “good old days” yet.But, Leo replied cordially, slowly, inspecting the clean amber scotch in a dirty hand: “From my perspective as nobody of interest, a straggler from the herd of men, a master of the wrong turn at every intersection in life, uh, ah, salud amigo” --

Orville grunted stone faced.

Beirut was a tough neighborhood even for Yanks.The previous spring the U.S. Embassy had been blown up and sixty-three people murdered by terrorists, amongst the dead were seventeen Americans, including eight C.I.A. personnel.Just hours earlier Leo made it across a No Man’s Land of pockmarked and tumbled and uninhabited buildings and asshole snipers.He’d crossed the Green Line, went over and back again without dying just to deliver a short message.Not dying, Leo felt, had many advantages, and he smiled somewhere deep behind his forehead in contemplation:

Mother Nature was taking back what men had borrowed.She was growing wild greenery in the cracks and crevasses of abandoned Lebanese hope.With more than a glimmer of Irish-gallow’s humor the locals called the infamous demarcation line, which ran the length of Beirut from north to south, that separated Christians from Muslims and vice versa, the Green Line.

Small arms fire popped and clapped in the early morning echoing in the far distance in the near distance and closer than that -- you know, way too close -- which seemed to have little or no impact on Orville.The old guy was calm, seemed thoughtful, at ease despite the brutish vagaries of war and the gallons of dried blood that covered the light Italian marble floor, which splashed for meters behind Leo.The Yank looked around at what was once a vibrant, ancient, elegant room without completely ruining his magic moment of respite --

Not far off a dog barked; a yip and a yap followed by a single shot and the dog barked no more.

The café/bistro was still intact at the back of the cavernous room where the imbibers sat on plush barstools as paying customers would have just days or weeks earlier at the long varnished mahogany bar.The undamaged cash register was open but there was nothing in it.The rest of the restaurant looked as if a bomb had gone off, and indeed it had: the front wall, windows, and doors were history, and while there were peeks and streaks of daylight shining through rents, burrows, and tunnels in the rubble there was no way in from the street, which was barricaded by a physical cacophony of bricks and pillars and beams, with thick cloying dust coating everything millimeters deep.

After missing his ride, looking for a hidey-hole for a couple of hours and maybe some breakfast if it proved available he discovered a circuitous route into The Bonhomie by trial and error wherein he found Orville, who claimed he was from North Dakota (really?) and the scotch.Two snifters?Huh?

Despite the fact that there was no electricity in the ruins a single ice machine behind the bar still held a few erstwhile cubes of precious cargo.Orville proved that he was a man of good will or wanted to pretend to be and had gallantly advised Leo of the remaining ice but -- though Leo wasn’t rude about it -- he didn’t like to spoil good scotch then or now.

Power came and went in Beirut within the electrical and the socio-political grid, but judging by the damage surrounding the Yank all power was lost in the Bonhomie.With jawbone oiled the Yank was about to ask Orville something when a calamity of heavier -- probably fifty caliber -- rat-a-tat-tats, just blocks away, was answered by a barrage of small arms fire.Leo flinched in saying, “Gettin closer?”

The old man seemed unperturbed and shook his head no.He took a long silent drink, sighed, and said, “I hope you’re not going to kill me.I have nothing of value.”

Leo wasn’t surprised by the statement: they weren’t at a Dairy Queen in Modesto, they were in Beirut.Interesting though, Leo caught another wisp of an accent in there that wasn’t grounded anywhere in North Dakota, or anywhere in the States for that matter.France maybe?Leo wiggled his head back and forth clinging to what he thought were polite mannerisms, and said, “No.I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head or what you got left of it,” and he chuckled behind those windows of his soul.Orville was a, ah, a very interesting human being.

Unsmiling, Orville formally bowed with that impressive noggin.

Huh?Orville’s nod wasn’t a North Dakota custom except maybe at a French Restaurant in Fargo.It was more Europe than Badlands.So Orville was probably lying to Leo a little or a lot about everything so far but then the truth in Beirut was seen in the streets, the rubble, the pain, and in the eyes of the children and didn’t often fly or dribble from the mouths of men.

Leo smiled chambering an odd thought.He’d witnessed French and German and Italian fellahs in the South of France wearing bikini bottoms, a kind of Speedo, and he once saw a hairy Irishman in Galway wearing one of the infamous “European marble bag things,” too.The collective memory was, to say the least, very unsettling, and extremely alien to the San Joaquin Valley chic whereupon he was weaned. Leo found some solace in the fact that Orville kind of looked like he wore marble bags at the seashore.Ha ha.

Since they were on the Christian side of the Green Line, Leo asked, “Missionary?”

Orville smiled.“No.You?”

Leo chuckled and shook his head as a slight tremor, a shake like elephant grass in the wisp of a baby breeze.“My grandmother was a Methodist, though.”

Orville nodded.“Not a Maronite, not Greek or Armenian Orthodox,” he said as a statement but with a dancing pronunciation at play, surrounded by a soft smile, maybe even genuine.

The Yank figured that the old guy was trying too hard to affect no accent.

“Alliances?Politics?Israel?Lebanon?” Orville rattled off.He glanced at Leo briefly but just as quickly went back to watching the battle bedecked rows of bottles on the shelves.“Are you” --

“A lot of questions,” Leo said.

“There’s a war on.”

The Yank nodded.“My politics?Israel?Lebanon?You mean?I’m neutral.”

Orville smiled tightly at Leo’s blasé fare, which irritated the Yank and so he got even by expressing one of his theories.He cleared his throat. “If success is the tenth rung on the ladder, whatever it may be, money, social status, what have you,” this was where Leo -- just like you might have -- narrowed his eyes, “a lot of people start at the first, the lowest rung.But, plenty start higher up at seven, eight or nine and so their ascension isn’t really much to brag about.”He shrugged like Beethoven on one of those Charlie Brown Christmas specials.“As time goes by the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.The climb gets easier for the former and harder for the latter -- no pun intended.”

There was no response from Orville, Sphinx-like he seemed un-breathing.Leo paused for a moment to make sure the old guy hadn’t died. The Yank visually checked the nostrils of the ersatz North Dakotan --

Then: “The top rung gets further and further out of reach for most folks -- I figure maybe it’s at around twenty rungs and growing in the States right now -- and that’s not an accident either.”Leo narrowed his eyes again punctuating his statement with knowing suspicion, doing a bit of baiting (probably useless) his own self, trying to shake something loose: maybe he could knock some fruit out of the upper branches of the mysterious Orville tree.

But, Orville remained blank:“You’re a philosopher then?” he asked Leo with just a whisper of contempt in his voice for a Yank’s opinion, or maybe just Leo’s.

The younger man shrugged: who cares.“I’m no philosopher but you asked me.”They looked each other in the eye(s) from Wyatt Earp proximity.Orville’s eyeballs were greenish, maybe, and Leo’s were like yours, or whatever you want them to be.

“Success,” Leo continued, “in Beirut is, y’know, ah, a little different than most places.Maybe just staying alive is real success -- yeah in Lebanon, I’d say, sometimes you gotta climb twenty rungs just to see breakfast in the mornin.”

“Who bears me no harm -- you’re on this side of the Green Line so you must be a friend.Or maybe you’re lost.”

“I’m a Yank, like you Orville.From a place kind of like North Dakota” --

“With washing machines and refrigerators and old cars in the front yard.” Orville tossed that in there, again with the slight contempt thing going on, but he was watching Leo a little more intently now.

“Yep, when I was a kid we grew ‘em from puppies, you know the washing machines and refrigerators and dryers, and when they were fat and all growed we sold them off to places like Sears and Luxembourg, Incorporated.We had quite a successful little appliance farm, y’know.Yank ingenuity.”Leo didn’t ask Orville about his politics because he really didn’t give a shit.

“So you’re in Beirut selling appliances?”

“Do I look like a successful refrigerator salesman?”

Orville shrugged.“Looks can be deceiving.Something can, ah, seem to be a thing, measurable, quantified and qualified but then not be what you thought it was at all -- why are you here?”

Leo sucked in a shallow breath, and said, scrabbling for footing, “I was on the Hollywood Freeway durin rush hour once.”Yeah what a nightmare.“There was a flashin electronic road sign -- y’know for traffic control -- that read BACK UP.I drove in reverse for ten minutes.Then, uh, another flashing sign told me to GO FORWARD.I did this for five minutes.Then I was ordered to back up again.Go forward again.Back up.Twenty-four hours later I was still on the Hollywood Freeway a half mile behind where it was I first got on.I wasn’t gettin anywhere so I said to myself: how about Lebanon it’s nice there this time of year?And, the rest is history.”

Leo said nothing, sipped his scotch.Then:

“Let me tell you an old Druze parable,” the old guy grimaced.And, before the Yank could object, Orville launched into his spiel:

“A shepherd came upon two poisonous snakes in a fight to the death.One of the snakes had bitten him before -- though the shepherd had survived -- and one had not.”Orville created a meaningful exclamation point slash question mark with his fluffy eyebrows.“So, the man took his cudgel, killed the snake that had bitten him.Of course, the other snake bit him right after that and the shepherd died.”

“Good parable,” Leo said.“Very dramatic.”

Orville accused: “You abandoned the Kurds to support Saddam Hussein in his war against the Iranians” --

“I don’t make policy in the States.I don’t even vote -- but, uh, none of my, ah, friends abandoned anyone anywhere -- I don’t have those kind of friends.”

Orville shrugged.“We let the snakes fight and do not help the one or the other for obvious reasons.”

“We?”

Orville searched Leo’s eyes, and then sighed.“Do you have a side in this fight?”

“No -- too many sides.Too complicated.Do you?”

The pretend-North Dakota guy didn’t answer the question but asked his own, “Really.Not a Sunni?Not a Shiite?Druze?I got it: a romantic P.L.O. sympathizer from Stanford?”

“No.”Leo chuckled, starting to get a little pissed off, and maybe forgetting where he was for a heartbeat (maybe it was the scotch).“Small Engine Repair dropout -- I still have an abacus though.”Shit.“I’m smart enough to stay away from the refugee camps -- nasty, ugly prisons for kids and women but not too good for a lone Yank these days either.”

The Muslim Palestinian-refugee presence in Lebanon had disrupted the status quo between Christians and Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites, and the country’s Christian/Muslim power sharing formula had been shot to hell, along with all kinds of other things, including the innocent.“Of course there’s the shelling in West Beirut and those missile thingies in Druze country” --

“Such is war,” Orville said flatly.

“Not my war,” Leo said.

“So, now we are getting somewhere.You are a philosopher.Do you see Arafat as a freedom fighter?”

“Arafat?”Leo slowed down, again.Orville was baiting.“I, uh, see Arafat as a fashion icon in Europe; and maybe the States too.”

Orville laughed: the laugh lines around his eyes were honest and popped into existence to be read by sight or by Brail.Leo figured, maybe, he’d just learned more about Orville than the old guy would about Leo no matter how many questions he dogged him with.But, Orville had an agenda and he wasn’t Leo’s friend.Besides Leo only wanted an honest drink -- yeah another one (uno mas por favor in Californian) -- and later, maybe a toilet with real toilet paper.

“Christian Phalange Party?” he asked.

“No.Nope.”

“Speak Arabic?”

“Not really.”

“What then?Armenian?French?Assyrian?”

“I barely speak English.”

“There are Kurds here.”Orville studied Leo.

“Really?”

“Why are you here?” Orville asked.Suddenly he seemed a little miffed.

Good cop bad cop? Leo blinked in a heavy-handed Bugs Bunny manner.

“I’ll ask you again: what are you doing in Lebanon?”

The Yank thought about that for a moment. He contemplated the level of threat this old man posed him, though he figured he knew:Orville looked like the third-string host of a children’s show on PBS but the old guy’s eyes, well, they commanded: drop and roll motherfucker.“I already told you --Hey, I also like cedar trees.I like Lebanese cedars.They’re different than the eastern and western cedars in the States.They’re, uh, even more aromatic in this bloody climate.”

“CIA?”

Leo shook his head no -- “Orville do you speak Hebrew?”Orville stared hard at Leo, but Leo pushed on: “Your accent isn’t quite right for North Dakota. Maybe somewhere in France, huh?Maybe Jersusalem?”

“I’m originally from Alsace Lorraine,” Orville said with the flash of a smile.“Do you know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“Really?How extraordinary” --

“For a Yank you mean” --

Bbbbrrrummmmp.There was a massive explosion as hell stepped into the room.The ground shook.Leo hit the deck and pushed himself against the bar under the slight overhang.Orville just sat there.

The initial earthquake merged with a second massive blast, though it was a minute or two later in real time. The threat wasn’t in the bar, the explosions weren’t next-door, and whoever the bomb blasts mangled, maimed, and killed it wasn’t going to be the two of them, at least not then, not right that second anyway.

“Shit,” Leo said; his mind alive with dread. “What the hell was that?”He stood. “West Beirut,” the old man almost said to himself.“Maybe the airport.”

“The Second Division,” Leo said slowly.“No man.”

Orville looked into Leo’s eyes.“Do you care?”

The old younger man had a sudden impulse to smash the older old man’s face in.“Do I care?” he asked harshly.“Fuck you.”

“Good,” Orville said.“Chaim,” he ordered: it was the voice of command.

Leo heard a door open.From the corner of the bar, a younger man, maybe Leo’s age, maybe a little younger, stepped into view.He was wearing a nice Hawaiian shirt, penguins or something and palm trees, and he was pointing an assault rifle at Leo.Uh-oh: the Yank had seen it’s like before, a Galil, an Israeli made and superior mutation of a Finnish Army rifle, and this reassured him, but only a bit.

Orville and stepped away from the bar leaving an open line of fire between Chaim and Leo. The younger Israeli, a dark-eyed curly-haired choirboy, watched the Yank intently, without emoting.Uh-oh.Fortunately Chaim’s finger was outside the trigger guard, and Leo probably have known it sooner or later if he’d been killed, unless of course he was already dead and in a box back in a West Fresno graveyard.But, didn’t Orville say he was from North Dakota and Leo was originally from farm country just west of Fresno? Hell, they were almost cousins.

“Are you armed?” Orville asked Leo.

This question bothered Leo for obvious reasons.“Back of my pants.It’s Czech but I’m not a communist.”

Orville nodded.“Put it on the bar top with a thumb and a finger by the butt.”

The Yank did this (even though the directions were semi-complicated and beyond his pay grade).Leo included a folding knife from his pocket trying to appease his captor -- the Stockholm Syndrome all ready?Damn.Leo took one slow step away from the bar.Chaim watched and shook his head no.

Leo shrugged and smiled again, a little wider:“I went to high school in Modesto.”

“Stand down,” Orville nodded to Leo, watching his eyes.

Orville’s Yank-military phraseology was probably meant to reassure unless it was cable news lingo or he was about to be interviewed for the PBS children’s show.He turned towards the bar and his empty drink, but saw no one where Moishe had been.His pistol and knife were gone.

“No papers, interesting,” grinned Orville without even the wink of a smile in his eyes.“I understand though.”

Really?As long as Orville was happy Leo was happy.

“I tried to warn you,” Orville said with a weary sigh sitting down on one of the only upright chairs left in the room.“I -- we warned you.Before the embassy bombing.”

Leo heard a door close but he didn’t feel a need to run off.He spoke to himself inside where only he could hear, “Let it be something else, something easy.”

But, it wasn’t.

It was the Beirut airport, the Marines.Moishe told Chaim and Chaim whispered to Orville and Orville told Leo.But, no one in the Bonhomie knew how bad it had been, not yet.

Leo was to learn, to his profound horror, that two hundred and forty-one Americans died on October 24th 1983, as did other “peacekeepers,” including fifty-eight French paratroopers.Two hundred and twenty of the human beings slaughtered by the first of two suicide truck bombs were in the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division.

It was the worst day of death for the U.S. Marine Corps since Iwo Jima.

Orville said softly as he raised his hands in supplication.“They were placed in an untenable -- indefensible -- position.Their rules of engagement absurd” --

“Shit,” Leo hissed.He leaned over the bar and grabbed the bottle of scotch, poured, hoisted, and slammed it down.

Moishe and Chaim and Orville watched the Yank.

Moishe had an Uzi back when the Israelis were still making them.The guy was rigorously muscled and looked like a model or a goddamn physical education coach from Santa Monica but he wasn’t.

“Am I free to go,” Leo asked Orville, without turning to look at him.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”Leo added softly: “Maybe they can use my help down at the airport.”

Orville nodded: “Maybe.Uh, your pistol is inside the back door, the magazine is empty -- Chaim will give you the knife, the pistol, the ammunition as you leave -- you might need it today.Uh, follow Chaim, he will show you the way.”Orville hesitated.“We are leaving too.But-but don’t come back in here during the next few minutes -- no, don’t come back at all today.”

“Or what?You might kill me?”Leo was feeling less tame after the shot of scotch.

“If we killed you maybe we wouldn’t have to leave right now.”

Leo nodded.Though he didn’t really want to become overly optimistic or give too much of a shit he opted to be polite: “I appreciate your, uh, consideration.”

“Yeah, no cream no sugar.” The Yank answered walking away; following the signpost of Chaim’s directional Galil.

“I once lived in Brooklyn,” Henri said to Leo’s back.“I know about many American things.”

Leo answered over his shoulder, “Good” --

“Hey, Mr. House -- stop Chaim.”

The Galil stopped so Leo stopped, though just barely.

“Tell whoever, ah, might listen, your superiors -- whoever -- that today was just the beginning -- this was the second attack by the same group.A new group.They’re called Hezbollah.Yes, the second.Don’t believe what you hear. Hezbollah bombed the embassy.These, these terrorists are not under the control of Arafat.They are, ah, Iranian surrogates.There will be more attacks against your people and Hezbollah will not be the only ones after you.”

Leo nodded stone-faced.He had friends at the airport.It was time to go.

Business-like again, Henri/Orville shrugged in a sort of Gallic-Israeli way.“You’ve been warned.”

Leo had been warned?

Warned?

The Yank started to turn away --

“Have you heard of the Holocaust?” Henri/Orville gently asked but with an edge; kind of like a quill trying to reinsert itself back into the goose.

Cautiously: “Yeah.Sure.”Leo was trying to wrap his mind around the airport bombing, the human element, the ramifications, the worry, the grief.

“Do you believe it happened?” The old man exhaled, softly, it was quiet in the Bonhomie.The small arms fire down the block had ceased.

Huh?“Yeah.” Leo said slowly in a monotone.He watched Henri/Orville tightly.He said, “The SS were the, uh, some of the most anal record keepers in history.”

Henri/Orville grunted.“After the war the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- a Nazi agent during the war -- introduced a well-thought out, even brilliant piece of disinformation.Maybe it was from the Nazis.Maybe it was his.It was an effective piece of propaganda.The Mufti claimed only -- only -- two hundred and fifty thousand Jews died in the war, victims of work camps -- not the six million that were slaughtered.Six million, men, women, and children.”Henri/Orville shrugged but punctuated the gesture by sneering at the lie with his old eyes.

“Why the lie?” Orville continued, answering his own question. “The Mufti wanted to destroy or at least mitigate any sympathy for European Jews.Refugees, orphans, death camp survivors.Survivors of the Holocaust.To stem the flow of Jews into Palestine -- then under the British Mandate.”

Leo nodded.He was beginning to feel like he was having an out-of-body experience.What’s happenin at the airport?

The old man commanded: “Listen -- I’m almost done.After Israel became a country in ‘48 the Mufti and others came up with or borrowed another gem of disinformation, a worldwide conspiracy composed of the United States, the U.N., Israel, and Jews everywhere.A conspiracy to take over the world.Later the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard -- these lies have swept the Mid-East.Traveled even as far as your country -- I’m told.”He looked questioningly at Leo.“Can there really be anyone in America that believes this, uh, this, uh, shit? This conspiracy to be true?That there was no Holocaust?”

“I-I don’t know.” Leo shrugged.He didn’t want to say, yeah, so he said, without thinking: “I know two sisters back home who are Jewish, among all the other things they are.